


HEAVY FIRE

by spicyshimmy



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Alternate Reality, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon, M/M, Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-28
Updated: 2012-05-22
Packaged: 2017-11-04 11:53:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 58,955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/393556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spicyshimmy/pseuds/spicyshimmy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Actually based on the merc!Shepard and Spectre!Alenko prompt on the kinkmeme. Earthborn Shepard never makes it into the Alliance. Merc life suits him just fine, as does teaming up with C-Sec officer Garrus Vakarian every now and then. And then he meets Lieutenant Kaidan Alenko, poster boy for doing things by the books. <i>It’d been a long day, but at least Garrus was buying.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

It’d been a long day, but at least Garrus was buying.

‘You’re up next round, Shepard,’ he said. One of these days he was going to join the enterprising turians on the dance floor already, grooving next to the asari ringers Purgatory hired to make everyone look like they were having a great time. It was the same on the Citadel as it was on Omega, on earth, on Illium, anywhere a new club opened up or an old one tried to bring in new clientele. Shepard could always pick the plants out of the crowd because they were too smooth, too easy, and because they repeated the same set of moves all night, exuding the same pheromones to pull it off.

Shepard took his drink and took a pull. It burned on the way down, nothing too fancy. Garrus knew what he liked.

Even if Shepard wouldn’t have minded watching Garrus up there dancing, just for kicks. When he thought about it their eyes met over their drinks and if Garrus had an eyebrow to raise, Shepard could’ve bet good credits on him raising it.

‘The drinks here are terrible,’ Garrus said instead. ‘Good thing they’re so damn cheap.’

‘You’re my favorite date on the citadel, Garrus,’ Shepard replied.

But they weren’t there to flirt. Usually they did _that_ over some mutual gunfire, Shepard bailing Garrus out of a tight spot with whatever C-Sec was putting him through these days. Waiting to sign on the dotted line while investigations fell through, more like.

Wasn’t that always the way.

‘So,’ Shepard said. ‘What do you need help with _this_ time?’ Garrus cleared his throat with a slight mandible flair. ‘…Did I say help? Of course, what I meant was consultation.’

‘That’s better,’ Garrus replied. ‘You know how it is, Shepard. Different day, same stupidity. The investigation’s gone south and everyone wants proof before investment. Besides, Alliance caught wind of it and now they’re involved.’

‘Which means you’ve _really_ got a reason to drink,’ Shepard said.

Garrus did so. ‘More than ever.’

Shepard uncrossed his legs to shift his weight, leaning on his other side, elbow on the squeaking bench upholstery, marking a few of the regulars in the joint while he cased the exits. It wasn’t anything, just an old habit he wasn’t about to see die, and more than once it’d come in handy. He saw the asari dancers, too, a couple of them meeting his eyes. Not that it was ever his thing, but he didn’t mind the thrill it gave him, that pheromone rush in the smoky air. It wasn’t as good as gunfire, but it was the next best thing and the only approximation they had anywhere on the Citadel, where old mercs went to die slow over rounds of poker in the docking bays.

‘Oh,’ Garrus added. ‘Did I forget to mention we’re meeting one of them here tonight? Wouldn’t want to scare him off too quickly by taking him somewhere unconventional and having him meet with a merc first thing on the job, now would we? That _might_ just rattle him.’

‘Enough to quit riding your ass and let you handle things yourself, huh?’ Shepard asked.

Garrus’s lips twitched. His eyes smiled, never his mouth. ‘You know me _so well_ , Shepard.’

‘Why do you think I like you so much, Garrus?’ Shepard said.

There was truth in that, even as he looked away. Shepard never had much use for moments of honesty between friends. Why waste the good stuff when it could be used to sway a mark or charm a by-the-book C-Sec officer?  Garrus knew they were tight—their relationship was downright warm and fuzzy, or as close to that as a guy could get with a turian.

Which was pretty close, if you were talking to Shepard. He liked to think he had the right pheromones, that he could handle the chance of scars.

There was a group of marines coming in the main doors—Shepard picked them out as seasoned, more than the usual handful of green recruits. You saw _that_ kind of thing all the time on the Citadel, cadets from the colonies using shore leave to take in the sights. It was almost sweet. Shepard, at least, never got sick of the brand-new look in their eyes, like they’d been vaccum-sealed their whole lives and woke up tasting air for the first time that day. Other people thought it was sweet, too—a different definition of the word, maybe, but it brought joy to the system nonetheless.

This group wasn’t fresh.

The woman he noticed first, tall and armored, with dark hair that fell to her shoulders. She was pretty enough, but something about her face said she’d drill you between the eyes sooner than smile back if she caught you staring. Shepard moved on.

‘I’d say don’t look now, but it seems you’ve already gone ahead and disobeyed that order,’ Garrus said.

He didn’t sound disappointed, just amused. Shepard had never known a turian with a sense of humor before Garrus—and even then he took personal credit for its development.

‘You said it was a he,’ Shepard pointed out.

‘So I did,’ Garrus said. ‘Two o’clock. And _try_ to pretend you’re going to let me take the lead on this one. As bad as C-Sec is for my sense of self-worth, you’re murder on my ego.’

‘It’s good for you, Garrus.’ Shepard leaned over and clapped him on the back, strong hand against strong armor over strong turian skin, the strongest of them all.

One of the Marines was heading toward the bar, bright lights from the upper dance floor glinting off his armor. Either it was brand new because action had seen to the retirement of his last suit—less likely—or he was just that kind of a guy, with polish on everything and no dents. He didn’t have a regulation cut and Shepard ran his palm over the back of his head, the short hair buzzed close to the scalp, something he could only feel when his gloves were off.

Wearing his greaves and gauntlets into a place like Purgatory was just like the asari plants—too much about showing off. Shepard didn’t have anything to prove, not with a scar under his thumb from where a batarian had almost blown his hand off.

That said it all—to everybody who knew how to look.

And he wasn’t in the habit of making idle conversation with the people who didn’t.

‘Cute,’ Shepard said. ‘Looks like talking to him’d be like talking to an elcor, though. Couldn’t tell a lie if his life depended on it. _Uncomfortable disapproval: what’s a nice boy like you doing in a place like this?_ ’

‘Good thing we’re not playing poker with him, then,’ Garrus replied. ‘If he’s that easy, I’m sure you won’t have any trouble shaking him while _we_ take care of business, now will you?’

 _That_ sounded ominous. Chances were Garrus knew something Shepard didn’t. He was always trying to pull that kind of thing; even if the challenge was appreciated, that didn’t mean Shepard could get used to it. He grinned, loose and easy, leaning back with one elbow braced on the bench behind him and his legs crossed wide. It wasn’t to put the squad scouts at ease—not at all. There was nothing those humorless types liked _less_ than seeing someone looking comfortable while they had to sit up straight and exchange formalities. It put them on edge, which gave Shepard _the_ edge, which only made him more comfortable and them less.

And that was what some people called a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Or just a little bit of history repeating.

The guy at the bar hesitated before he ordered. Maybe he wasn’t used to the asari pheromones, or the bartender—who’d flirt with anyone for a higher tip.

‘Lieutenant Kaidan Alenko,’ Garrus said. ‘No one particularly notorious. I _have_ heard a thing or two about his biotics, however. Not my area, but according to some, his credentials _are_ impressive.’

‘Yeah—with an attitude to match.’ Shepard’s grin didn’t slip, but he’d dealt with guys like that before, ones who figured because they were special they got to act special. Maybe he didn’t know how to order a drink, but he’d know—or think he knew—how to order people around. ‘And the others?’

‘Ashley Williams. Soldier.’ Garrus sighed. From the way he told it, the weight of C-Sec itself was resting on his shoulders. They were big shoulders. It could’ve been true, for all Shepard cared to look into it. ‘And a few others. Just look at them.’

‘While you take the lead, I’ll be looking,’ Shepard said. ‘Go ahead, Officer Vakarian. I’m all yours for the night.’

Garrus’s lips pursed, the ridge above his nostrils flaring. ‘What an honor,’ he said.

Shepard glanced away from him, classic turian deference, part of the hierarchy he’d respect—if only for the night, like he’d said. The officer at the bar, Alenko, hadn’t decided on a drink—he was probably just trying to shake the bartender down for any information, and if he wasn’t tipping, nobody was talking—and now he was headed back to the rest of the group. Williams pointed to Garrus and Shepard didn’t sit up a little straighter, didn’t have to.

Soldiers never felt the need to be subtle. They didn’t have to, either.

‘Here they come,’ Garrus said. ‘I’d say be gentle, but…’

Shepard’s grin grew just a fraction. ‘But you’re a turian, and that means you like it rough.’

‘ _Behave_ ,’ Garrus said. Even if the whistle in his mandibles said _don’t,_ that was how Garrus liked it.

Shepard had never met a turian so keen on _not_ following orders. Theirs was a mutual friendship based on coloring outside the lines—and if Shepard found some of the typical merc avenues of employment cut off because he had a C-Sec officer breathing down his neck, well… He got first crack at a few jobs guys in his position never would’ve seen otherwise.

Like this business with Dr. Saleon.

Shepard had been part of the investigation from the beginning, even if only Garrus knew about his involvement. When they needed a guy on the inside to confirm saturation of organ sales on the black market, it was a lot easier to call Shepard than risk blowing the operation by sending the boys in blue to do things by the books. All Shepard had to do was make a few discreet inquiries, track a couple stories, to find out everything came down to having this salarian doctor in common.

But Garrus couldn’t move, not officially, not without proof, and that was where the whole case had unraveled. No matter what the pair of them dug up, there was nothing concrete, nothing they could use to nail that slippery bastard to the wall.

In the end, Dr. Saleon burned his lab and took off with a ship full of hostages. Shepard was unclear on the details after that, since Garrus had relayed the story half-cocked, pacing back and forth and muttering about the value of galactic life set against bureaucracy.

He hadn’t broken anything. That wasn’t his style. But he _was_ pissed, and Shepard could see it some days still festering, just below the surface. The one that got away.

None of his business, so he didn’t ask.

It couldn’t be coincidence that Garrus had picked this Alliance crew to work with, though. Not after they’d mentioned catching a whiff of a salarian fugitive with a new ship to his name—and a new name, to boot.

Shepard was willing to bet this _Heart_ guy was the same old Dr. Saleon they’d dealt with before, trying to show off his sense of humor. This little meeting was just to confirm the lieutenant there knew what they wanted him to know. If not, they could still break off, no hard feelings.

Alenko sat on the bench across the way. He didn’t seem like somebody who reclined even on his off-hours, even in a place like Purgatory: back straight, definitely not resting his elbows on his thighs, not leaning forward no matter how bad he wanted to. His squadmates stood behind him; Shepard marked Williams again, somewhere close to being impressed by the whole package, before she met his eyes like it was a challenge.

To prove it wasn’t, Shepard looked away.

Alenko didn’t come with that hard edge, but he was wary all the same. This wasn’t a debriefing room, that was for sure, and only some people preferred that kind of ambience to the alternative. It wasn’t cozy or nice, just less formal. Shepard knew he wouldn’t look right buttoned up to the throat in full-out dress uniform, either, and for some reason, whenever he tried a salute, people always thought he was messing with them.

‘I…didn’t realize we’d have company,’ Alenko said, mostly for Garrus’s benefit.

‘In Purgatory there’s always room for company,’ Shepard replied.

Garrus cleared his throat. As if Shepard needed to be reminded how much he liked being in charge of things; it was just like with Williams, no challenge at all, Shepard backing down easy and quick for no other reason than because he could. Picking his battles was the only thing that stood between him and burning up in deep space. Or burning up somewhere less impressive. Or crashing and burning, which was the most likely option.

‘This is…Shepard,’ Garrus said, when Shepard didn’t cut in, giving him full reign over the floor. ‘He’s a private consultant on the case. We go way back—and so does this investigation.’

‘Yeah. I read all the files,’ Alenko said.

 _Of course you did_ , Shepard thought.

‘Real awful business, too.’ Alenko was still watching Shepard out of the corner of his eye. Shepard watched him back, looking for a scar or something on his clean-cut face, where the only thing that hinted at personality was the way he styled his hair. Either he was playing things close to the chestplate or there wasn’t anything to play. ‘…But there’s no way to pin what Dr. Saleon did on this Dr. Heart, either.’

‘Which is exactly how he got away the last time.’ Shepard knew Garrus enough to know that was the tone of voice he used when he wasn’t happy. It was all in the reverb, the metal alloy echo of his words against his teeth. It had a hum to it, a dangerous one, thrusters primed and ready for takeoff—but never giving themselves enough juice to fly. ‘It’s like you said, lieutenant. A…real awful business.’

‘He knows,’ Shepard said. ‘After all, he read the files.’

‘I’m not sure we appreciate your attitude,’ Williams replied. She looked like someone who’d been born to hold a weapon—and when she didn’t have one to hand, her arms didn’t know what they were supposed to do with themselves.

‘I’m just wondering what an outside hand means for the investigation.’ Alenko looked to Williams to stand down and she did, but she was about as happy as Garrus about it. ‘With too many elements, things could get messy.’

‘They’re already messy,’ Garrus said. ‘The point is cleaning that mess up. Shepard was…involved in the old case. He knows a few tricks about the good doctor, and I can promise his methods are completely legitimate.’

‘Right. Legitimate.’ Alenko watched as Shepard leaned forward. Their eyes met across the table and Shepard could practically feel Garrus rolling his, the strength of will it took to hold back on his usual fine commentary.

Another thing no one else knew about Garrus Vakarian was that he had a great sense of humor, not just for a turian. That kind of personality quirk wasn’t exactly appreciated back on Palaven, but Shepard had coaxed it out measure by measure, until the guy was actually more than decent company.

Shepard didn’t have to like the people he did consistent business with, but it made things run a hell of a lot smoother in the long run if he did.

‘Remind me again why we’re talking business in a bar, LT?’ Williams said. ‘Purgatory’s a far cry from C-Sec Headquarters, and I’m not exactly seeing Captain Bailey’s seal of authority on this.’

‘And you’re not going to,’ Garrus said. He could speak for himself, so Shepard let him.

Easier to get a good look at their new partners that way. You could tell a lot about a person by the way they took in a story, their reactions to news both good and bad. Alenko was still, no fidgeting hands and no restless legs. The look in his eyes was attentive but wary. He wanted the details, but he wasn’t committed the way Garrus and Shepard were.

That was fine. He hadn’t seen Saleon’s work up close and personal. All he’d done was read the files.

‘Officially, this case has been closed since Dr. Saleon left the Citadel,’ Garrus added, elaborating when no one else cared to do the same. ‘Our jurisdiction doesn’t cover broad space, and we’ve got too many problems right here under our noses to spare the resources for a wild…goose chase, is it?’

Shepard nodded, short and not without some humor. He recognized Captain Bailey’s words when he heard them, maybe even better than some of Bailey’s actual men.

‘Except now you’ve got our intel on this _Heart_ guy,’ Alenko said. ‘It’s obviously an alias. That’s not even a salarian name.’

No wonder Garrus was going stir crazy. The sharp deductive work he was dealing with was the usual official brand of pointing out the painfully obvious and waiting for the commendations to come rolling in.

‘It’s going to take a hell of a lot more than suspicions to make the captain jump.’ Shepard heard the sigh Garrus held back, a weariness that went bone deep. Not many guys chafed at the rules that kept them from doing _good_ things. That was part of what made Garrus so unique.

His dreamy turian eyes were another. Shepard couldn’t help but grin, and when Alenko caught him at it he clearly didn’t know what to make of it all.

Most guys like him didn’t know what to make of Shepard.

‘So that’s what we’re saying—if we do this one, it’s off the books,’ Shepard said.

It wasn’t his turn to talk, but it couldn’t hurt reminding everyone whose side he came down on.

From the way they were looking at him, they already knew.

‘Don’t look so surprised.’ Shepard held up both hands, the universal sign for truce, except when you were dealing with batarians, when it was the universal sign for _shoot me in the chest_. That old scar _still_ ached sometimes, usually when Shepard slowed down for long enough to feel it. ‘When you’re in the business of being dishonest, the best currency is always telling the truth. I’m not in this for the money—’ Williams couldn’t cover up a snort of disbelief. ‘—or for the boost to my reputation, because if I _was_ , I’d go after way bigger fish than this Dr. Saleon. No; this business is personal. Call me old-fashioned—call me a lot of things; people always do—but I like to finish a job once I’ve started. And this? _This_ is unfinished business.’

‘…Which Shepard can be extremely useful in bringing to a satisfactory conclusion,’ Garrus added. ‘For all of us.’

‘Always such a flatterer,’ Shepard said. ‘No, seriously, Garrus—he’s a great guy.’

‘I…see.’ Alenko still had no idea what to make of them—not having decided on a single, unfavorable verdict like Williams over his shoulder. Shepard didn’t know which one of them was greener so he settled on both—and settled back into place, having given the usual speech that left young recruits starry-eyed and older soldiers marginally impressed with his moxie. ‘This is still _our_ investigation.’

‘Of course, of _course_ , lieutenant,’ Garrus said. ‘I merely brought Shepard here in good faith—to have him work with you. Pooled resources… Isn’t that on the agenda with every organization these days?’

‘I’ll be lending my expertise, nothing more.’ Shepard paused. ‘And maybe my impeccable aim. But other than that, I just want to make sure we’re not working _against_ each other when, I mean, just look at us. We’re on the same side and everything.’

‘Like I said,’ Alenko told them, ‘I read the file. Even read it twice. There’s no letting someone get away with something like this.’

How wrong he was. How wrong they always were. Shepard had seen it a hundred times if he’d seen it once and when he thought about his hand in it—how his hands had been tied—he felt like Garrus’s voice sounded, all sheared-off metal.

‘Good to know we have an arrangement.’ Shepard stood, holding out his hand. Alenko looked at it like it was a weapon or a decapitated batarian or a hit of red sand. Then, probably startling them both, he actually shook it. ‘I’ll just be taking those transponder codes and seeing you kids around.’

‘Shepard,’ Garrus said. No doubt he wanted to add, _you can push your luck whenever you want—so long as you don’t push ours_.

But pushing _somebody’s_ luck was how Shepard was still fleet-ready after all this time. He saved a real grin for Garrus and something else for his new friends.

Allies was such a strong word. He didn’t want to go there, not so fast.

Somewhere out there was a ship called the MSV Fedele, and the real date Garrus and he had was with that, not on the Citadel.

*


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alenko's bad at tailing a guy. Shepard enjoys Alliance benefits.

Shepard was kitting up when he realized he wasn’t alone. He didn’t make any sudden movements, reaching for his M-5 Phalanx slow enough that he’d actually get his hand on it before his company opened fire.

Docking bay shootouts weren’t uncommon, even in the Citadel—and especially not this part of the Citadel. Shepard wasn’t a stain on somebody’s reinforced titanium alloy side-paneling yet, but every day, he liked to think, he got a little closer to being scraped off and painted over.

It was a good thing he didn’t shoot.

He was being flanked by Lieutenant Alenko, of all people.

Shepard had to hand it to the Alliance. They did _some_ things right, but training a soldier how to tail a mark wasn’t one of them. Alenko would’ve stuck out like an asari in a room full of volus even if he _hadn’t_ been wearing his bright blue armor. No one had ever taught him to keep to the shadows or break his gait so he didn’t look so obvious. He might as well have been marching in a homecoming parade at one of the colonies.

Shepard didn’t let go of his pistol, but he relaxed his grip.

Something told him Alenko was as by-the-books as the guys Garrus regularly complained about. He wasn’t going to cold-cock Shepard right there in front of all the sleek ships coming in to dock.

‘I’m flattered you think I’m important enough to tail me,’ Shepard said, just loud enough so Alenko would know he’d been made. ‘Even more so that you’re doing it yourself, instead of sending out a delegation.’

Alenko hesitated, just long enough that Shepard knew he’d actually thought he was being stealthy.

It was almost endearing, for someone that went in for that kind of thing.

‘I meant what I said before,’ Alenko said. He adapted quick, Shepard could give him that. ‘This is still our investigation.’

‘Just because you read some files?’ Shepard asked.

It was reckless, but he didn’t have Garrus around to keep him in check. Not that having a guy like Garrus Vakarian as your watchdog was a sign of strict boundaries—probably the opposite—but there was something about him that balanced Shepard’s attitude so he _didn’t_ insult Alliance soldiers, at least not to their faces.

Alenko sighed, gloved fingers rising to rub at his temple. Headache, maybe. Though who could tell under all that hair?

‘Look,’ he said, ‘I know you and Vakarian—you’ve got some personal investment in this. That much is obvious. But that’s exactly why you need our unit.’ Alenko paused, trying to catch his eye. Shepard slid his pistol into the hip holster. He didn’t need to look up to be listening, and Alenko was clever enough to know it. Not clever enough to get the drop on Shepard, but then, who was? Not even Garrus could lay claim to that fame. ‘Aside from providing the necessary resources, which you _don’t_ have, we can also bring a certain…perspective.’

‘Which you think we need,’ Shepard said.

‘Which I _know_ you need.’ Alenko took a step forward but Shepard recognized the precision of his movements, like he didn’t want to start a gunfight either and he even knew how heavy he was, that he needed to avoid a few landmines before he defused ‘em. ‘Like I said—you’ve got some personal investment in this. I get that. But people don’t think clearly when they’ve got that kind of stake in a mission.’

Alenko was already staring at Shepard’s hips—at the pistol in the holster, more like, trying to determine what it’d take to bring it out, but while his attention was down there, Shepard shifted his posture, hips cocked forward enough to make Alenko swallow. ‘Something you know from firsthand experience, Alenko?’

‘I’ve seen it happen. Everyone has.’ Alenko licked his lips; Shepard wondered if he’d read that on a file somewhere too, or seen it in the data enough times that he was able to put two and two together. ‘And I’m not gonna let it happen with this investigation.’

‘I’m touched by your concern,’ Shepard said. ‘Really. I am. It’s not every day somebody cares whether I get into trouble or not—much less somebody like you.’

‘You think I’m being patronizing,’ Alenko said.

‘Alliance? Patronizing? Never.’ Shepard checked his omni-tool to make sure Garrus was sending him those codes. He was, along with a nice message that said he’d be meeting him soon, but not to wait up too late. When he lifted his head, Alenko was still watching him, but his eyes were above the belt this time. ‘Hey, I mean it. We both know the score here, so why not just take this one easy? Sit back, relax a little. Let it happen the way it happens with somebody else doing all the heavy lifting, _and_ you can take all the credit for it when the smoke’s cleared. Doesn’t that sound nice?’

‘That’s not me,’ Alenko said.

He only thought it wasn’t. Maybe he didn’t have the time to know any better. Maybe he hadn’t read it on a file yet.

Maybe what he needed was a healthy dose of seeing how things really went down—what one of Saleon’s patients looked like in person, instead of when they were nothing but a series of data entries on a pad somewhere, during a briefing that was all about statistics instead of flesh and blood. Shepard had _seen_ one of those guys bleeding out all over the floor. It wasn’t a clean thing, the kind of injury that cauterized itself while it burned. It was a slow death—and you couldn’t see something like that and still respect yourself, not if you came away feeling anything but dirty about it.

‘Okay,’ Shepard said.

‘Okay?’ Alenko repeated.

‘But I’m not letting this guy get away again, either.’ Shepard turned back to the ship Garrus had secured for them—fast, little, sleek, with a decent cloaking system and a pilot Garrus called _quirky_ , or maybe he’d just called him a _joker_ —while he could still feel Alenko’s eyes on him. Well, Shepard thought, let him look. Let him take it all in and get the whole picture. He wasn’t shy about what he looked like from behind, the scar at the nape of his neck, the tan he didn’t have from open sunlight in the Sol system while he lounged around all day doing nothing. ‘It happened once and you know what? I was in a bad mood for a long time after. Garrus, too. You ever dealt with a pissed off turian?’

Shepard looked over just in time to see Alenko’s face harden. He’d seen that expression countless times, just not on fresh Alliance meat looking to score a few for their resume. It was a merc thing, jaw tight, wearing shadows like scars, and Shepard almost acknowledged it before he let it slide.

Still, it was interesting.

‘Yeah.’ Alenko glanced at the ship over Shepard’s shoulder instead of at Shepard’s face. ‘I guess I haven’t. What are you even flying, anyway?’

‘Something new,’ Shepard replied. ‘I like to keep things fresh. Have different experiences. Makes me feel young again.’ He patted the side of the ship with the palm of his hand; she felt sturdy, and if Garrus gave her the seal of approval, then Shepard could trust she’d pull them through.

Whatever it took to take this bastard down.

‘I meant _your_ ship,’ Alenko said. ‘Wherever it is. I…guess I shouldn’t be surprised you’re not about to tell me, though.’

‘Guess you shouldn’t,’ Shepard agreed. ‘Now you’re learning, lieutenant. I like that in a guy. I could even tell you what else I like, too.’

Alenko coughed, or tried to. It came out sounding exasperated, or maybe like he was trying not to laugh.

He was an interesting guy without Williams and the others to flank him, without Garrus around to take charge of the situation. Shepard liked _that_ , though it wasn’t as easy to put into words. He liked it because he could work with it. Some of the best guys he knew were the ones that turned into different people when they didn’t have their peers breathing down their necks.

Garrus had been that way—and Shepard liked to think they had the beginnings of a beautiful friendship on their hands.

‘I’ll…bet you could,’ Alenko said. He didn’t sound at all sure of what it meant for him, but that didn’t matter.

It wasn’t the answer Shepard had been expecting.

‘Anybody ever tell you you’re full of surprises, Lieutenant?’ Shepard asked.

‘Not really.’ Alenko’s hand was back at his temple again, rubbing away the ache Shepard had cooked up for him.

‘Fair enough,’ Shepard said. ‘How about this one: anybody ever tell you you’re a _lousy_ tail?’

That got Alenko’s attention just fine. He made that sound again, halfway between a groan and a sigh, crossing arms that were stiff because of the armor he refused to take off. Knowing him, soldiers like him, he probably slept in it.

‘I wasn’t _following_ you,’ Alenko said. At a look from Shepard, his mouth twitched, lips stretching into something that was nearly a smile. ‘I mean—I wasn’t trying to hide it or anything. Ash got the idea you guys might try and cut us out after you had the coordinates.’

‘And give up that convenient Alliance stamp of approval?’ Shepard said. ‘Uh uh, no way. We’ve been after this guy too long to let him slip through the net on account of us being vigilantes. We do this, we’re gonna do it right. That butcher gets locked up, your crew gets a commendation, and we all walk away happy. Hell, Garrus might even skip.’

The look on Alenko’s face said he was picturing it. It also said he wasn’t as immune to Shepard’s charms as Williams had been, armor or no.

Good. That was gonna come in handy later—it always did.

‘We use one ship,’ Alenko said. ‘And that’ll put an end to any concerns of one party losing the other between mass relays. We’ll share crew, intel…’

‘One big happy family,’ Shepard said.

‘One big happy turian,’ Alenko agreed.

It was almost a joke.

‘…Plus,’ Alenko continued, not letting them linger too long in that _should I be laughing_ stage, a guy with bad comedic timing who at least recognized his shortcomings, ‘you can take Alliance supplies on board, too. There _are_ perks to working by the books, you know.’

‘So I’ve been told.’ Shepard crossed around toward the ship’s thrusters, checking out what she was packing. It wasn’t his first instinct—maybe his third or fourth—but he left flying to the pilots. He was good at staying alive in a crash, something no amount of Alliance training could get you, but he could appreciate a good model. There was something on her side, an old name that’d been crossed out. She was probably Alliance once, but now… Now she was flying for somebody else, maybe seeing more sky than she would’ve if she spent most of her time in an Alliance-run docking bay. Good for her, Shepard thought. It was downright inspirational. ‘Never tried it myself, though. What kind of supplies are you talking?’

‘I’m not looking to show off,’ Alenko said, ‘but I think you’ll be impressed anyway.’

*

It wasn’t the supplies Shepard noticed so much at first as it was the escort that came with ‘em. At least Alenko had the brains—or the guts—to travel light when it came to accompaniment.

Just him, Williams, Garrus and Shepard. And the ship’s pilot, plus a couple of Alliance-hired engineers to keep the engines running smoothly.

Not only was it one happy family, it was cozy, too. Shepard checked all the exits, where the ejecting shuttles were kept in case of emergency protocol, and when he caught Williams doing the same thing, he grinned—to let her know they weren’t so different after all, not even when it came to their personal standards, their private regulations.

The main game-changer was that one of them knew how to smile more often.

Shepard had suited up in the interim; you never could be too careful. He could feel Alenko’s eyes on the chinks in his armor, something all the polish in the Sol system couldn’t clean away, but even with the old burns on the chestpiece, the chip missing from one of the greaves, it was better than Alliance standard-issue. It’d seen Shepard through too many encounters with angry batarians to count, for one, and that was all he needed: something that’d keep him from going up in flames when a batarian got loose and fancy with the hand grenades.

When he’d asked Garrus one time about batarians—why did it _always_ have to be batarians—Garrus had shrugged and sighed, all dried up like the Tuchanka desert. ‘Probably because they never talk about their feelings like elcor,’ he’d replied.

It was gonna be a fun trip.

Coordinates plugged in, Alliance ammo _and_ weaponry in the hold, a pilot Garrus referred to as ‘annoyingly good at what he does,’ and an old score to settle. Shepard made his way past the crew cabin and into the fuselage just so he could have some alone time.

He liked the sound of the engines. It was a steady hum, a heat you couldn’t get anywhere else, the heartbeat of the ship. Plus, there was no awkward conversation to make with a pilot who just wanted you out of his hair anyway.

Nothing was certain before they made the jump. Even for most spacers, even for most aliens, trusting the Mass Relays to work was second nature, never first. Holding your breath for it was just a part of breathing—what you kept in, what you left out.

Shepard leaned his elbow against the window, staring out at the sky. It moved so fast it was nothing more than a blur through the darkness, a few bright lights that managed to cut through that.

Behind him, somebody cleared his throat—a sound that was starting to be more familiar to Shepard than flying. ‘You know, even if this ship _isn’t_ Alliance grade, there are still more comfortable places…’

Just Alenko. Just passing through.

That was fine. Shepard did better one-on-one, when the odds were even—when it was about who was quicker, not necessarily who was smarter or who had the bigger gun.

Shepard glanced over his shoulder, not turning around all the way. ‘Just enjoying the view,’ he said.

‘The thrusters are burning right outside that window.’ Alenko held his position, something you either learned first thing or never. It made all the difference every time.

‘Exactly,’ Shepard said.

‘…You’re going to tell me you like to watch them burn next, aren’t you?’ Alenko asked.

‘ _Someone’s_ been reading too much asari poetry,’ Shepard said. There was almost a question in there, for anyone who knew how to look. He didn’t _think_ Alenko was the kind of guy to go in for a meeting at the Consort’s Chambers, but there was a difference between thinking and knowing, a wide space nobody’d built Mass Relays to jump across yet.

The small stuff made you sweat more than the big stuff, right under the collar, where the Kevlar chafed your skin raw.

‘That’s…not my style,’ Alenko said.

Confirmed, then. It didn’t matter for much, except that Shepard liked to be right about people. The skills he’d taught himself were all he had to recommend him.

‘Not mine either,’ Shepard said. Then, because it couldn’t hurt, he added, ‘I like the sound more than the view.’

There was no reason for him to tack that on, no angle to work where Alenko needed that information. It came suspiciously close to sharing for conversation’s sake, and Shepard made a note of it—for observation’s sake, and for his own sake. A lot of sakes floating around, complicating each other.

Fortunately, Alenko didn’t seem to think much of the revelation. Given the option and a stiff drink, he’d probably spend all night talking about himself to whoever felt like listening. The thought made Shepard grin, private, rubbing his chin with his jaw before it got any bigger.

‘They say if something goes wrong on a ship, you’ll hear it way before any other signs,’ Alenko said. ‘Listening… It’s probably not a bad habit to get into. There are definitely worse hobbies.’

‘‘They’ say, huh?’ Shepard asked.

‘Well,’ Alenko admitted, ‘engineers, mostly.’

Shepard could buy that. He liked the Alliance engineers they’d brought with them; Daniels knew her shit and Donnelly couldn’t keep his mouth shut. Shepard couldn’t imagine working with either of them for too long, but he’d take them out for drinks maybe once this job was over.

Alenko could come too, if he played his cards right.

‘What did I tell you about being a lousy tail?’ Shepard asked. Outside the window, the thruster jets flickered like a biotic’s barrier, pure kinetic energy bright against the backdrop of space.

‘I’m not following you,’ Alenko said. A little too quickly for Shepard’s tastes.

‘It could be worse.’ Shepard turned around at last, leaning against the window, using whatever thruster light there was behind him like a backdrop. ‘You could be Williams. She send you down here to check on me, make sure I’m not smuggling contraband or Red Sand or something in the paneling?’

‘You…’ Alenko paused. Williams had probably mentioned it. In fact, just seeing Alenko’s eyes flicker, Shepard already knew she had.

‘You’ve gotta work on your poker face, Alenko,’ Shepard said.

Alenko rubbed the back of his head. The pain showed through—it wasn’t something Shepard had made up anymore, and as much as he enjoyed being right, as much as he had no stake in _this_ , it wasn’t like he wished anything bad on the guy. It was no skin off Shepard’s ass if Alenko lived a nice, peaceful, by-the-books life that didn’t land him in a mess he couldn’t Alliance-jargon his way out of.

It wasn’t likely, but Shepard wasn’t actively rooting against him.

‘Vakarian’s taking this one personally too. That’s all.’ Alenko paused again, eyes tight at the corners, fine lines that came with their fair share of shadows. Shepard saw that sometimes—on other guys, sure, but also in the mirror. When he bothered looking; when he bothered shaving. Still, it wasn’t often. ‘He’s not easy to talk to.’

‘Yeah, that’s turians for you. They’ve got good hips and voices _made_ for sweet nothings but it’s a pain in the ass when they get hung up on something,’ Shepard said. He enjoyed it when Alenko blinked, obviously asking himself what was going on there, and came up short, with no answer. He enjoyed it even more when the question was enough to distract Alenko from the pain, like wondering _what the hell is this guy talking about_ , confusion itself, was the only medicine that worked for an old ache. ‘That’s Garrus Vakarian for you. Like you said—things happen when you take your work home at the end of the day. Why do you think I’m down here, avoiding the guy?’

‘You said you liked the engine room,’ Kaidan said.

‘I say a lot of things.’ Shepard pushed off the wall, moving close. The same phenomenon happened with planets sharing an orbit and two ships passing each other while flying a routine course. If you got _too_ close, there was always that moment of potential, like the crash’d be good for you. Shepard enjoyed it, soaking it in, before he steered himself away from doing anything head on.

His shoulder bumped Alenko’s and Alenko stood up a little straighter for it.

 _Good boy_ , Shepard thought—even though he had no idea how old the guy really was. He had lips that made Shepard think of him as younger, and the way he held his mouth…

Shepard looked away after he veered off. That was part of the trick to it. And he could feel Alenko looking after him, pulled by that gravity. They were in the same orbit now.

‘C’mon,’ Shepard said.

‘Where to?’ To his credit, Alenko didn’t ask _how high_ when Shepard had practically told him _jump_.

Shepard paused, weight rested on the ball-joint of one foot, the sole of his right boot. ‘Figured we could play some cards. Pass the time, shake out the nerves. Give Williams something to scold you about. Fraternizing with an unknown—that’s something else I like, lieutenant. _Fraternizing_.’

‘Pretty sure you’re not using that word right,’ Alenko said.

‘Pretty sure it doesn’t matter if I am,’ Shepard replied.

He was right and they both knew it; Alenko wasn’t too big that he couldn’t admit to that. He didn’t follow behind but he did come up alongside Shepard’s left, flanking him with a practiced speed that spoke to all the training he put his stock in. Whether he was right to do that or not—Shepard had no idea. And it didn’t matter, so long as Alenko kept his head down and let Shepard do all the shooting.

Not that he was planning on negotiations falling through.

There weren’t going to _be_ any negotiations.

‘Think we’ll start you on poker,’ Shepard said. ‘You’ll like all the rules the game’s got.’

‘And you’ll break ‘em and beat me and prove how we don’t need the rules in the first place,’ Alenko replied. ‘Yeah. I think I know how this one goes.’

Shepard swung himself into the crew cabin, going for a pack of cards. ‘Are you kidding? If I’m gonna beat you, I’m gonna do it at _your_ game,’ he said. ‘That’s the only way guys like you know how to recognize a win, anyway.’

*


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shepard and co. play a game of hearts.

Garrus found them there a couple of hours later, still playing.

‘How cozy,’ he said.

‘Took the words right out of my mouth, Garrus,’ Shepard replied, glancing up. ‘Getting cozy’s what I’ve been thinking about all day.’

‘It shows,’ Garrus said. He was putting on a brave face for their little tete-a-tete, but Shepard saw right through it.

When even Alenko noticed you were tense, it was time to work on the old poker face. Garrus was dry humor and stiff posture all over, but he’d gone downright brittle since they’d left dock. Shepard tried to imagine him shattering like a guy who’d been hit with cryo rounds before gunfire, then shook it off.

Garrus was better than that. He wasn’t gonna let the job get to him—and when he did, he had Shepard around to kick his skinny turian ass back into fighting shape.

‘You need a drink, Garrus.’ Shepard didn’t take his eyes off his cards, still waiting on the straight he’d been nursing for the better part of the half-hour. ‘Take your mind off things for a while.’

‘Last I checked, the Alliance wasn’t in the habit of stocking dextro-friendly beverages,’ Garrus said. He took a seat on a nearby couch, close enough to watch but not so close that he seemed interested in playing. Just enough to give Shepard that prickly feeling on the back of his neck, like he was being made by someone who _did_ know how to tail him. ‘What I _need_ is to be ready for anything. Dr. Saleon—’

‘Heart,’ Shepard said.

‘Flush,’ Alenko said, and spread his cards on the table.

It was his first victory, but it was also easily the best hand of the night. That one stuck in Shepard’s throat despite his efforts to cough it out. So much for knowing what Alenko was thinking.

He might’ve been a lousy tail, but his face hid things better than his body language did.

 _And_ it’d happened in front of Garrus.

Garrus had the nerve to laugh, voice flanging like music to Shepard’s ears. If he’d been too out of it even to comment on Shepard’s misfortune, they’d have been in some real trouble.

‘So that’s where my four of diamonds went,’ Shepard said.

‘Nothing up my sleeves,’ Alenko replied. He’d gone and rolled them up special for the game, finally comfortable enough to lose the big blue armor. And it suited him—although he was still, technically, in uniform. The Alliance insignia stitched right over his heart said as much.

‘One round out of the whole night. Don’t get cocky on me just yet, Alenko.’ Shepard folded his hand, leaning back to check over on Garrus. His face was unreadable, as always, so Shepard had to take his cues from other things: posture and mandible position, all the other pleasures of watching Garrus at work or before work or cooling down after. There was never any _at ease_ period. Garrus didn’t relax so much as he waited. ‘Good thing we weren’t betting all along.’

‘I don’t know, Shepard,’ Garrus said. ‘It’s always about who has the last word, isn’t it?’

‘Getting a little personal there, aren’t you, Garrus?’ Shepard asked. ‘Maybe bringing the card game back around to the present situation?’

Garrus showed some teeth. ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’

‘And a good thing the flush wasn’t all _hearts_ ,’ Shepard added, pulling Alenko’s cards back in to shuffle them with the rest of the deck. ‘That’d be a little too on point. I don’t like it when life starts to imitate the job. Turns out it’s not—you’re just thinking way too hard about everything.’

‘Not a problem you have, Shepard?’ Garrus asked.

‘You know me, Garrus.’ Shepard flashed him some teeth to match. ‘And _I_ know you love me for my looks first and my aim second, not my brain.’

Kaidan cleared his throat—just like Shepard had when he realized he’d lost the round, maybe because of luck, maybe because of Garrus showing up to distract him, or maybe fair and square—but that was when the comm. system fuzzed on and the pilot’s voice came in to them, loud and clear. ‘Got the coordinates in our sights now, boys,’ he said. ‘Coming up on the location, so if you’re still in there playing strip poker, you might want to put your skivvies back on and get ready for some action.’

‘Why do so many pilots have to talk like that?’ Garrus asked. ‘Is it something they learn in flight school, or is it a prerequisite for getting in?’

‘Sounds to me like he’s having a fantasy all alone in that cockpit,’ Shepard added. ‘Now, I don’t blame him—bunch of good-looking guys like us, but—’

‘LT,’ Williams said from the doorway. ‘What’s going on in here?’

‘You heard the pilot.’ Shepard nodded in the general direction of the cockpit. ‘We were naked until pretty recently. Just showing Alenko here how to play cards, and Garrus… Well, he’s a sniper by trade. So that means he likes to watch.’

‘Already suiting up,’ Alenko said.

Already business again, too.

Shepard could be like that, thinking about nothing but the job—and to say it wasn’t weighing on him now like it was weighing on Garrus, that it hadn’t been there in the back of his mind all along, would’ve been an outright lie. But he hadn’t been kidding around when he mentioned that business about life imitating the work they did, how bad it was for keeping his head in the game. If he closed it out, when it came down to the moment, he wouldn’t miss.

‘You look more serious,’ Garrus said. ‘Good. You should be.’

‘I’ve been serious all along,’ Shepard replied. ‘Serious about my poker, serious about winning—’

‘Serious as a sandstorm on Mars, I’d bet,’ Williams added.

Shepard liked her. He couldn’t figure why, but he did.

He didn’t think she’d appreciate him letting her know the good news, so he reached for his pistol, sliding it back into the holster. Kaidan was doing up his armor and Shepard thought, for a second or two, what it’d be like to see him taking the armor off. Somewhere private, without too many people crowding the room, gloved fingers going for all the joints like he was impatient but still keeping his cool…

Shepard lifted his arm to his mouth, switching on his omni-tool to patch in to the main ship system. ‘Take us in,’ he said.

‘Joker,’ the pilot replied.

Like he wanted to play cards, too.

‘Take us in, _Joker_ ,’ the pilot clarified, and Shepard shrugged, even though he wouldn’t be able to see it.

‘Jokers wild,’ Shepard said.

‘You can bet your briefs on that,’ Joker replied.

*

There were monsters in the cargo bay of the MSV Fedele and all Garrus could say about it was _I told you so._

Like Shepard hadn’t been the one right there next to him tracking the bastard down. Like he hadn’t already seen the results of Dr. Saleon’s experiments for himself.

The Fedele had been a standard design transport ship once—but Saleon had made improvements to _it,_ too, adding modules willy-nilly to make room for his experiments. Shepard thought he’d prepared himself for anything they might run into, only that twisted salarian son of a bitch had figured out a way to keep his victims from lying down once they died. That was the only explanation for the waves that came at them when they breached the hull, mindless enemies that were no better than corpses. It was Williams who spotted the first one—and she didn’t hesitate before blowing its head clean off its shoulders.

Shepard knew he liked her. He’d just been waiting for the obvious reason.

‘Nothing like that in your files, hey, Alenko?’ Shepard asked. They were crouched together behind a pair of lashed-down supply crates. In the distance, Shepard could hear the crack of Garrus’ sniper rifle, loud even over Williams peppering the field with supporting fire.

‘You’re not serious,’ Alenko said. Kinetic barriers rippled over his armor as he shot a pulse of biotic energy forward. ‘ _Now_ seems like a good time to tease me about that stuff?’

‘Might not get another chance,’ Shepard replied. It sounded worse than he felt. There were plenty of bodies to take care of, but they went down easy.

Maybe it was because they were already dead.

Alenko shook his head. At least, Shepard thought he did. Even though the cabin was pressurized, the good lieutenant hadn’t seen fit to take off his helmet yet.

There was probably something in the regulations about not baring your face when it came to unknown circumstances and potential enemy fire. The turians had their own saying about being bare-faced, but it wasn’t as polite. In fact, turian politics usually worked out that way.

Krogans had hard heads. Turians had hard skin. And humans had hard knocks, hard armor for what they couldn’t deal with on their own.

Shepard glanced up over the edge of the crate just in time to see one of those things—he didn’t have a name for them and he didn’t want one—lurching overhead. Alenko was on cool-down time between biotic moves and Shepard didn’t bother with shifting the angle of his pistol to get a clean shot, one that would’ve splattered them both with dead-man’s guts. He grabbed it by the neck instead and brought it crashing down onto its back, then emptied half a clip into its head.

After the smoke cleared, it finally stopped twitching, finally got a chance to rest.

‘Thanks for the cover,’ Alenko said.

‘I could say the same to you,’ Shepard told him.

‘Yeah?’ Heat, blue-and-white, shimmered in the air around Alenko’s polished armor, something else to stand between his body and the rest of the galaxy. ‘Why don’t you?’

Shepard grinned, a line of sweat dripping down the side of his face. He could feel it tickling his skin, getting stuck in an old scar between his cheekbone and his jaw. But he left it alone, popping up from behind cover and taking out another enemy _before_ it got the chance to cross the room and get that cozy with them. Alenko had the same idea, a second hostile floating in the air while biotic pressure tore it to pieces, and Shepard had to admit there were perks to the drawbacks, same as there were with just about everything else. He’d worked with a few biotics in his time and he’d heard the complaints as much as he’d seen the benefits.

Alenko was good, and not just because he’d read all the rulebooks about it, either.

Shepard wiped the sweat out of his eyes with the back of his greave and moved on, Alenko hot in his tracks. ‘All clear,’ Garrus said over the omni-tool, voice tinny and only halfway to satisfied. He was so close to the guy he could probably taste it—and Shepard knew the flavor, the sweat and the heat, the grim satisfaction of his clenched teeth.

Williams covered them while Garrus worked on getting the panic locks open. The door was sealed up tight, which meant something—or somebody—important was inside. ‘Nobody wraps anything up that good unless it’s a present,’ Shepard said.

Their guy was in there.

The reunion was a long time coming.

The door opened with a hiss of depressurized air—and the stink from inside hit them like a fresh wave of the walking dead, just as wrong and just as rank. Shepard grunted, marking the shadows through the haze, waiting for the first sign of life that’d give their target away.

And there it was—the clatter of metal being knocked over, somebody trying to hide in the same shadows they’d created. When Shepard stepped into the room after Garrus, his boot squelched in something wet, something downright disgusting.

The whole place was wrong. And, if they’d managed to stop Dr. Saleon in the first place, it wouldn’t have been there. None of this would’ve happened.

Shepard had seen some bad stuff in his time—the kind of stuff that could even haunt a guy’s dreams, if he had any. The spare alien parts scattered all over the room, though… That was a new low. He covered his mouth with the side of his pistol, where the burn from the fresh rounds cut through the stench.

For the time being, it was enough.

But not for Garrus Vakarian.

Shepard had used the line before—‘You won’t like him when he gets angry’—and today was no exception. It was his turn to be hot in Garrus’s tracks, while Alenko skidded on one some of the goods splattered across the floor, catching his balance a second later.

‘Dr. Saleon, I presume?’ Garrus said.

The sound of his voice sent something cold and hot racing down Shepard’s spine. The guy knew how to strike fear into the hearts that were on his side, and Shepard wondered if Saleon felt the same thing, with a deeper cut: something personal, without the thrill or the honor Shepard felt at the same time.

‘Thank goodness you showed up,’ Saleon said. There was a quiver in his voice that Shepard had come to associate with all salarians, but this one had less to do with biology and more to do with the landing party. ‘I was worried those things would overrun my ship. Wrong man, though—I’m Heart. Doesn’t matter. Any landing party in a meteor storm, right?’

Shepard wanted to laugh, but it stuck in his throat. Too bad, since he knew how Garrus counted on him to break the tension. He’d seen some crazy stuff in his day—they both had—but this butcher pulling a damsel in distress had to be the best show in the galaxy. Better than _Blasto_ parts I through IV, and Shepard had seen them all. Some of them twice.

No way was Saleon getting away with it. Not with two witnesses who could identify him, backed by the resilient morals of Alliance brass.

‘Shepard,’ Garrus said. There was a question in there, for someone who’d spent a long time listening to Garrus Vakarian _not_ say things.

‘He’s our guy,’ Shepard said.

He heard the click of Garrus’ rifle as he cocked it, then another squelch as Alenko stepped forward. When Shepard moved to block him, Williams shifted the train of her assault rifle, and Shepard got it—that it wasn’t clear who she was aiming for.

‘You can’t just kill him,’ Alenko said. ‘This isn’t –we’re not a vigilante crew.’

‘Speak for yourselves,’ Shepard said, so Garrus wouldn’t have to say it. That kind of attitude caught flack on a C-Sec officer. It fit so much better on a merc’s tight frame.

‘Taking this bastard in won’t be doing him any favors,’ Williams said. ‘Looks to me like he’s made enemies out of every race in the galaxy—and most of them are in this room. You really think we’d be letting him off easy, Vakarian?’

‘We do this right,’ Alenko chimed in, ‘otherwise there’s no point in doing it at all.’

Doing things right was how the Fedele had come to exist in the first place, but Shepard wasn’t about to bring that up—not when they had company.

‘Garrus,’ he said instead.

It was still their operation, no matter whose coordinates they’d used to get there.

It was up to Garrus, whatever he chose. Shepard wondered if that was a strain of old-fashioned optimism his lifestyle hadn’t stomped out yet, or if he knew what he’d go for if the choice’d been his. There was something to be said for the cleaning crew that didn’t leave any loose-ends hanging—but Williams was right about one thing. Even if they took Saleon in, did things by the books, and _didn’t_ splatter him with the rest of his patients, whatever came next would be about as pretty as the mess he’d made of his operating room.

Sometimes doing things by the books could be a nastier business than not. The clean break, the mercy kill, the single round to the temple—call it whatever you liked, but Shepard knew there was a line drawn between his type and so-called galaxy officials, and every day somebody crossed it without realizing. It was just that fine a distinction.

Sometimes there wasn’t a distinction at all.

‘Are you trying to make me angry, Dr. Saleon?’ Garrus asked.

Shepard’s mouth twitched. It was an old line and a good one—and he liked getting the opportunity to be with Garrus when he went for it. The satisfaction of the situation was seeing him get his sense of humor back, always at the perfect moment. ‘He’s a pretty angry guy,’ Shepard said, watching Saleon twitch. He didn’t know why, but he almost felt satisfied about the way things were going down. Proud, like it mattered worth a damn. ‘That’s what makes him so much fun to fly with—take down criminal scum with, too.’

‘I’m just not giving you the satisfaction. Not today,’ Garrus added. He didn’t lower his weapon, the sight still trained dead-center between the salarian’s eyes, where his horns narrowed into the ridge of his forehead and a clean shot would pierce his skull the second he tried something. If he had the guts for it—his patients certainly didn’t, not anymore. ‘I’m afraid we’re taking you in. I’m sure your fellow prisoners will be…interested to learn all the rumors about you. It’d be a real pity if they were to catch wind of your actions here, wouldn’t it? In fact, they might want to make your stay as comfortable as you made your patients.’

‘No,’ Saleon said, with a flare of panic Shepard recognized. By the books, practically. Alenko could stick that in his datapad and share it with a cruiser-load of first year Alliance hopefuls. ‘You’ll never take me alive.’

People were _always_ saying that.

The trouble was what they did after they said it. Their backup plan. Contingency. The panic button.

Saleon went for something on the table. Could’ve been an automatic weapon; could’ve been a grenade. Could’ve been anything. They’d cased the joint as well as they could but it was still home turf for this guy and he was—if their experience that day didn’t make it obvious already—out of his fucking head. He was crazy and there was no predicting what he’d do.

Shepard had his finger on the trigger, but the first shot came from over his shoulder, whizzing past his ear and clipping the lobe as it went. Heat flared on the side of Shepard’s face and Saleon went down, his first shot pinging off the chestpiece of Garrus’s armor.

Alenko’d taken him out. Shepard finally glanced over his shoulder, lifting a brow.

But Alenko was still wearing his helmet. There was no way to see his face.

‘Damn,’ Garrus said. ‘I knew I should’ve shot him in the first place.’

Shepard watched Alenko for a second longer, then turned away, clapping Garrus on the shoulder instead. ‘You want to shoot him now, you still can,’ he said. ‘Might mean you’re closer to his kind of crazy than you’d think, but who’m I to judge what a guy does with an old enemy?’

‘The best part was when he really thought I’d buy his story about Heart.’ Garrus took a step forward, picking his way past the blood and guts like a professional because he _was_ a professional. ‘And now he’s dead. Very dead. Well done, lieutenant.’

‘Yeah,’ Alenko said, voice echoing from under his mouthpiece.

‘Son of a bitch,’ Williams said. She kicked a weapons crate, unused wetware kits bundled together on top.

Whatever that sick bastard had been planning, Shepard didn’t need to imagine it anymore. They’d stopped him.

‘Couldn’t have put it better myself,’ Shepard said.

‘Sorry, LT,’ Williams said. Shepard didn’t know whether she was apologizing for her own behavior or that she’d done something Shepard agreed with. ‘Didn’t mean to be unprofessional, it’s just… Damn. You hear about this kind of stuff, but you always want to believe the guys in charge wouldn’t let scum like this slip between the cracks.’

Shepard felt a knot of tension beginning in his back, right between his shoulders. He tried to shake it off but his armor was double-plated, heavy enough that it’d last him years without needing any key parts replaced. Even when it chipped, the polymer weave beneath was strong enough to deflect most light pistol fire, and some heavy.

He paid for the protection in comfort, but nothing came without its price.

Anyway, he’d be fine once they got back to the ship. Garrus wasn’t much for back massages—those sharp turian fingernails always got in the way—but a celebratory drink at the end of a mission accomplished could work wonders.

This was a crew that could stand to loosen more than their stiff muscles if Shepard had ever seen one.

‘Now you’re singing my tune,’ Garrus said. He cracked his neck, and Shepard felt the pop that came next as if it was in his own spine.

Alenko bumped their shoulders together as they turned to leave Saleon’s workroom behind, but it wasn’t on purpose.

‘Keep your head up,’ Shepard said, low enough so the others wouldn’t hear. ‘Working off the books means more than perfecting your poker face.’

‘I know that,’ Alenko said.

He didn’t, but it wasn’t Shepard’s job to correct him.

*


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sexual tension and such.

The horizon always looked brighter after a few shots of cheap whiskey. Even if the crew wasn’t loosening up by Shepard’s standards, they’d all managed to settle in the same room without the usual dance of sizing each other up and undercutting each other’s decisions.

He’d take progress where he could get it.

They still had a few hours before they were back on the Citadel, hauling a dead body in for show-and-tell with the higher ups. The way Shepard figured it, Alenko should’ve been grateful for the long trip, since it put off all the paperwork he’d be filing—though knowing him, he might actually be looking forward to it.

Garrus never went in for that kind of thing. But some people enjoyed it, or so Shepard had heard. Maybe it made them feel like everything could fit neat and tight into a report at the end of the day, before the sun on that bright horizon went down, and sleep came easier knowing you’d made sense out of chaos.

Only you couldn’t. It was all bullshit anyway.

Shepard knocked the whiskey back and let it burn his throat deep into his chest, shaking his head as it went down. The brand wasn’t part of the Alliance supplies that’d made their job that much easier; it was like swallowing thruster fuel after it’d been ignited and even though Shepard was drinking alone, he thought he caught Williams looking at the bottle just once—probably wanting to see for herself if she could handle it better than Shepard could, or at least with fewer tears pricking the corners of her eyes.

‘You think you can take a shot, Williams?’ he’d asked her.

‘No,’ Williams had replied. ‘I know I can. No need to prove it.’

There was no flirtation there, no chance of it, and Garrus—grim and stiff-shouldered—had the look of a guy who was still holding his sniper rifle, who still had somebody he really didn’t like trained in its sight. Shepard had half a mind to clap him on the shoulder again but instead he leaned too close.

‘Credit for your complicated turian thoughts, Garrus,’ he said.

‘Bloodthirsty, mostly,’ Garrus replied easily. ‘Still wanting to kill someone. Exactly what most humans assume turians are like on a good day.’

‘Aw, c’mon,’ Shepard said. ‘You’re tough, but I’d never mistake that face for a krogan’s—or those hips, for that matter.’

‘If you did, I wouldn’t stand near you when you were armed.’ Garrus shifted and some of the tension sloughed off his body, but there was still residue on their armor from what they’d been fighting. They’d be feeling it for a long time, thick turian skin or no. ‘Since _blind soldiers_ are more of a danger to their own team than anyone else.’

‘You know how good my aim is,’ Shepard said. ‘Didn’t you see me out there?’

‘I was a little busy at the time,’ Garrus admitted. ‘But I _was_ watching.’

‘Would’ve hurt my feelings otherwise,’ Shepard said.

‘I’m gonna…’ Alenko finished the sentiment by clearing his throat, standing, nodding toward the door on his way out. It hissed as it rolled open, covering up any other texture in his voice. ‘…check on the cockpit. See what, uh, Joker’s up to, how long we have left.’

Just like that, he was gone. Garrus shrugged and Shepard did the same, only it was with his whole body, loose and easy from the whiskey.

They were off the clock—Shepard off his personal timer. Unwinding was what came next, unless you had a debriefing to look forward to when you docked. Good thing Shepard didn’t. Would’ve made _him_ cranky, too.

But Alenko was wound up tighter than a burnt-out thruster coil. Shepard put his empty glass down on the table and stretched, still in his armor, still feeling that knot in his back.

‘And _I’m_ gonna go check on the lieutenant,’ he said. ‘But only ‘cause I know you can handle yourself just fine without me, Garrus. You’re always making that so clear.’

‘Now that you’ve put me in such a good mood?’ Garrus’s voice hummed at the end—contemplative, but still sharp. ‘Don’t worry about _me_ , Shepard.’

‘Like I ever do,’ Shepard replied, and ducked out of the room.

Williams and Garrus, alone together in the same cabin. Now there was a match made on Khar’shan. It’d go up hot like a batarian gunfight and Shepard was fine with not being there, heading past the fuselage on his way to putting it all behind him.

Alenko was still there, standing next to the engines. Maybe he was listening to them hum, or reminding himself some things worked no matter how much pressure you applied to them.

‘Enjoying the view, huh?’ Shepard said.

Alenko didn’t startle. He was good like that.

‘Felt like I was crashing a party,’ he replied. His brow furrowed, the constellation of three freckles on his forehead shifting across his face like the stars outside the ship when his forehead wrinkled up. ‘But… You know, I pretty much always feel like that, so you shouldn’t take it personally.’

‘What makes you think I was gonna?’ Shepard asked.

‘I don’t know.’ Alenko shook his head, though Shepard couldn’t tell yet what _specifically_ he was having trouble swallowing. ‘You aren’t exactly what you’re selling in the vids, though. Are you?’

Shepard laughed, breathing out like he’d just met a polonium round to the sternum. It’d take a lot more than that to knock him for a loop, but he didn’t need Alenko knowing it. Not yet.

‘You saying you want a peek under the armor?’ Shepard asked.

Alenko caught himself before he smiled, mouth twisted and stuck on disapproval. Shepard liked him better for the impulse.

‘My head’s splitting,’ Alenko let the next blink take him slow and Shepard leaned closer, one hip braced against the wall. ‘I’m a relic, you know. L2 implant. They spike higher—give you better results in the field, but the side effects are a little…’

‘Shitty,’ Shepard said.

Alenko opened his eyes. ‘Shitty works. I was gonna say unfortunate, but…’

‘Sure you were.’ Shepard grinned even though or maybe because Alenko wouldn’t let himself do the same, not wincing when a cut on his lip opened up fresh. ‘You’ll have to be quicker than that to beat me _there_ , Alenko.’

‘Huh,’ Alenko said. Something in his face reminded Shepard of the flush and his missing four of diamonds. ‘Anyone ever tell you a guy with your skills is wasting his time as a gun for hire?’

‘Sure,’ Shepard replied. It wasn’t a lie. Mostly they stopped at _you’re wasting your time_ but sometimes, they cared to elaborate on different reasons. ‘That’s usually right before they try and make me a better offer. I’ve heard everything from private security in one of the central colonies to Thessian pool boy.’

‘What about Alliance Marine?’ Alenko asked.

Shepard didn’t blink. ‘Not happening. As far as my odds go, if I was gonna take something, it’d be Thessian pool boy all the way.’

Alenko chuckled, a sound that was still wound tight—only now Shepard knew why. The implant was acting up, and not because Alenko’d been showing off with his biotics but because he’d been using them at all. ‘I’d like to see that,’ Alenko said.

‘You know, you play your cards right,’ Shepard said, ‘which I know from personal experience you can, and you might just get the chance, Alenko.’

The chuckle didn’t last as long as it would’ve if Shepard had left it alone. Alenko rubbed his chin with his thumb, then pushed his hand back through his hair, something that might’ve been an excuse to press his fingertips to his temple without calling attention to what it meant.

Fun as this was, Alenko still had his headache.

‘I don’t think Alliance makes those offers, not on the books. Marine’s the closest you can get.’ Alenko dropped his hand again and checked on a burn he had on his glove, a streak across the jointed Kevlar knuckles that spoke to the shot he’d fired earlier. It only took one. He knew how to mean business and Shepard wondered if he was Alenko’s target now, a special space case in need of reformation. No amount of lounging against the wall and cocking his hips would make a lick of difference when someone that determined, that focused, that ready to fire, had you in their sights.

‘You already know what my answer is,’ Shepard said. ‘Same thing I tell everybody. Wouldn’t want to make someone jealous by making an exception this late in the game.’

‘Yeah. I got that.’ Alenko took a second, then leaned against the wall with a regulation-sized space left between them, carefully measured, and glanced out the window into the thruster shine. It lit up the side of his face, but Shepard was willing to bet it was nothing compared to the way his eyes glowed when he was showing off what the L2 implant gave him. Shepard looked away from his profile, not too fast—not slow enough. ‘I figured it couldn’t hurt to try anyway.’

‘And that it couldn’t hurt to ask me somewhere Williams wasn’t in earshot, right?’ Shepard considered closing the distance, one step at a time, but the reasons why he might were complicated and it wasn’t the right setting for this kind of thing. If he _was_ going to make a move, it’d be back on the Citadel, down in Purgatory, trying to teach Alenko how to avoid asari advances and flirt with his eyes whenever an interested turian tried to catch his attention across the dance floor. Shepard needed all that extra room to maneuver—not to mention the distance they’d get after, when they _weren’t_ stuck on the same transport, when the only music _wasn’t_ the hum of the engines in the fuselage.

Alenko chuckled again, dryer this time. ‘That…might have had something to do with it. But you were good out there, Shepard. Alliance could use somebody like you.’

‘Alliance isn’t the only one who could,’ Shepard said, and left it at that. Alenko wasn’t looking out the window anymore but marking Shepard’s face instead, the blood on his lip and the old scar on his forehead, the one on his cheek. He had eyes full of questions even without the biotic glow.

He was sizing Shepard up.

Shepard didn’t have a damn thing to prove.

‘Now, if _you’d_ asked me about a pool boy position—’ he began, right as Alenko said, ‘You know you’re bleeding.’

Their voices overlapped and Shepard grinned, Alenko shaking his head.

‘Yeah,’ Shepard said. ‘I can taste it.’

‘I bet.’ Alenko pushed off the wall again; he’d never been relaxed there in the first place. ‘You should get that looked at.’

‘You gonna patch me up?’ Shepard asked.

‘I don’t see why not,’ Alenko replied. He was already on his way to grab a medkit and Shepard wasn’t used to the feeling of following up after, or following at all.

That was one more reason not to say _yes, sir_ to the job offer. Alenko didn’t know what he was asking for, anyway.

They found the extra med-kits in the cargo hold, Shepard sitting on one of the crates while Alenko pulled out the medigel. He was all business until he finally turned around—a dangerous choice, turning back for anyone or anything—and Shepard eased up, palms braced next to his thighs, knees spread just enough to make Alenko swallow.

‘Well? C’mon in, lieutenant,’ Shepard said. ‘Water’s just fine.’

Alenko rolled his eyes and Shepard felt proud of himself. Someone had to count the little victories and it definitely wasn’t going to be Garrus.

‘My folks on Earth have a pool,’ Alenko said. Like it was one of those things you tossed around, show and tell with the Citadel merc. It was getting harder for Shepard to gauge whether or not he’d played this game before. ‘I never really thought about who cleaned it, though. I think it might’ve been some salarian service.’

Shepard turned his face to the light like a good patient and chalked it up to a fluke. Like his winning hand at the table, any dissembling on Alenko’s part was probably something that happened by accident.

‘Don’t take this the wrong way,’ Shepard said, ‘but I think I’ve had enough of salarians to last me a while.’

‘Probably a lifetime,’ Alenko agreed. He didn’t hesitate before squeezing a glob of bright gel onto his fingers, lifting it to the cut Shepard hadn’t even felt while they were fighting, hadn’t even thought about after.

He knew it was there now but also that it didn’t matter. It’d heal clean or not, joining the collection of smaller scars littering his face, a souvenir from the day they closed the books on Saleon once and for all.

Shepard’s face twitched at the sudden chill of the medigel and the hard edges of Alenko’s focus softened, like he knew that tune.

‘You some kind of amateur medic?’ Shepard asked.

‘I might as well be.’ Alenko’s hands were smaller without the gloves, fingers not gentle but careful enough to make a stab at it. Shepard preferred that to the alternative. Anyway, Alenko wasn’t trying too hard, but he wasn’t not-trying, either. ‘I’ve definitely spent enough time in sick bay to learn my way around the pharmaceuticals.’

‘Guy could make a lot of money with that knowledge,’ Shepard said, and Alenko dug his knuckle in under his cheekbone, where he hadn’t shaved since Purgatory. ‘Ow—’

‘If I say you’re not fooling me, will you drop the act?’ Alenko asked.

‘If I say no, will _you_ tear my face off?’ Shepard replied. When he reached up to ease the knot in his jaw, his fingers brushed Kaidan’s and came away cold, sticky with medigel, something he had to wipe off on his thigh, only it left a long, bright streak over the plate. ‘’Cause right now it sure _feels_ like you will, and I’ve gotta take something like that into consideration, Alenko.’

No lieutenant this time. The guy hadn’t earned it, behaving that way—or he might go for the old scars again, sharper than a sniper when he wanted to be, because he thought it was part of the act.

It was one of the more interesting jobs Shepard had found himself on, not for the history but for the brand new elements. He didn’t mind it, even with the ache in his skin, his bottom lip numb.

‘You’re a tough guy. You look like you can take it.’ Alenko’s touch softened, though; when he applied pressure to Shepard’s cheek, Shepard turned without protest, still tracking Alenko with his eyes. He couldn’t let up for a second and the way that made Shepard’s blood hot just from being on his toes…

He hadn’t felt that for a while, not even tracking down Saleon.

The sight of his patients—more like victims—had sobered any triumph Shepard might’ve felt about closing the chapter on _that_ old story. But Shepard could still taste the whiskey on the back of his tongue, the medigel at the front of his mouth, a cocktail he didn’t much care for when it met in the middle.

Alenko swiped his thumb between Shepard’s bottom lip and his chin.

‘There you go. It’s as easy as that,’ he said. ‘…You know, I don’t get it. I really don’t.’

‘Get what?’ Shepard asked.

Alenko didn’t let go, still holding Shepard’s face in both hands. ‘Why guys like you don’t do something about the scars,’ he explained. ‘You’ve got the supplies, got the contacts. You probably know a few…doctors, too. Not like Saleon, like Heart, but…somebody who could fix that for you, no questions asked.’

Shepard waited for more. There wasn’t any. ‘So, you read that in one of your files?’ he said.

‘Guess it’s part of why you wouldn’t say yes to Alliance membership either, huh?’ Alenko shook his head; Shepard knew he’d dropped the issue because he’d dropped his hands, wiping them off the proper way, cleaning between his fingers with a sanitary wipe-down, then letting it drop into the waste-bag.

‘Something like that,’ Shepard said.

‘It was…nice working with you, Shepard,’ Alenko added. He straightened his shoulders at last, not for a salute but to offer his hand for a shake.

Maybe it wasn’t what they’d been flirting around, not the deal-sealer Shepard had been thinking about for a few moments there, but Shepard was used to frustration by now. Hell, that was life on the regular, dancing around the same subject with Garrus for years.

Maybe Shepard was the only one who knew he was dancing.

The light in Alenko’s eyes—it didn’t come from anywhere or anything else—said differently. Shepard enjoyed the view for a few seconds longer, legs still spread, Alenko still standing between them.

‘I’d better log in,’ Alenko said finally. ‘We’ll be docking soon, and—’

‘And you’ve got reports to write instead of to read. All part of the great circle of Alliance life.’ Shepard pushed himself off the crate. When he stood, his face came real close to Alenko’s, so Alenko could smell the whiskey and the medigel, his own handiwork and Shepard’s bad choices. ‘That’s the real reason I’m not saying yes, Alenko. No meaning other than I _don’t_ like doing the paperwork.’

‘Sure,’ Alenko said.

‘Yeah,’ Shepard replied.

When he headed back into the crew cabin alone, Garrus was waiting for him.

‘ _You_ were gone a long time,’ he said. There was already room for Shepard to slide in next to him and he did, stretching out old, sore muscles that never got the time or the chance to heal. ‘Should I be jealous?’

‘You know there’s only room in my heart for one officially sanctioned operative, Garrus,’ Shepard told him. ‘Now let’s play some goddamn cards.’

*


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shepard thinks about batarians. Kaidan asks him out. This chapter is steamy.

The docking bay was a pain in the ass, as usual, and Shepard stayed on board a while longer than he would’ve—because he’d caught sight of a group of old batarian friends unloading across the way.

‘What’re the odds, right?’ he asked the pilot—Joker, an easy guy to talk to, _if_ you looked past all the bad jokes he wouldn’t stop making.

‘I don’t know, Shepard,’ Joker replied. ‘You look like the kind of guy.’

‘Wouldn’t know how to live with myself if a couple of batarians _didn’t_ hate my guts,’ Shepard admitted. ‘Hey—thanks for the smooth ride.’

‘Yeah,’ Joker said. ‘It’s kind ofwhat I _do_ , being a pilot and all. Fly things well. Could’ve warned me I’d be handling turian style, but that’s cool.’

‘You were hired by a turian, weren’t you?’ Shepard asked.

‘You sure it’s _just_ the batarians who’ve got a problem with you, smartass?’ Joker replied.

Shepard grinned lopsidedly, evening it out when he didn’t feel the familiar pull of healing cuts on one side of his face. Alenko knew his way around a tube of medigel—so chalk that one up to another mission accomplished for the good lieutenant, even if it kept happening on graded scales.

‘No sense of humor on Khar’shan,’ Shepard said, tapping his forehead. ‘They had to make room for those extra eyes somehow—they got rid of the part of their brains that made jokes.’

Even worse—those extra eyes were what made it so damn difficult to slip past a batarian crew in the first place. That didn’t mean Shepard didn’t give it a shot whenever slave trading was involved; that was probably the real joke, only Shepard never felt like grinning about it.

‘I’m really starting to see why you let Officer Vakarian do all your recruiting.’ Joker adjusted the bill of his cap, waving Shepard off. ‘No one wants to talk negotiations with the crazy guy in the docking bay.’

‘That’s Garrus for you,’ Shepard said. ‘Plays to people’s strengths. I’ll see you around, Joker.’

‘Uh huh,’ Joker muttered. ‘Well—not if they see you first.’

It was nothing to joke about, so Shepard stopped kidding around. He was through security easy—working with C-Sec had its perks, even if Captain Bailey couldn’t officially put his stamp of approval on Shepard’s results—and almost at the elevator before the back of his neck told him he’d picked up another tail.

He reached for his pistol, but it wasn’t the batarians. Dressed down in a faded set of off-duty blues, Lieutenant Kaidan Alenko was striding after Shepard like it didn’t matter if he got caught dogging his footsteps. Maybe it didn’t.

Williams was nowhere in sight. Garrus had gone ahead to C-Sec HQ to make his reports, leaving out—as always—the more colorful measures they’d used to get the job done. No one complained if a few cold cases got solved creatively—it was more funding for C-Sec, and at the end of the day everyone’s pockets were a little fatter for it.

Shepard’s included.

‘You’ve got a date with a datapad or two, don’t you?’ Shepard asked, Alenko drawing up close. ‘Wouldn’t want to interrupt the hot night.’

‘You said something earlier about playing my cards right,’ Alenko reminded him. ‘I’m off-hours now, anyway. I can file it in the morning.’

Another ace up Alenko’s sleeve. He was better at this poker-face thing than he let on, even looking like he didn’t know already what answer he was gonna get. Shepard didn’t have to think about it long, the prospect of sharing a few drinks with somebody instead of knocking them back alone or worse, waking up with Aria again. They could even get a room after—if that was what Alenko was implying.

The flush on his throat said it was.

‘This an official invitation, lieutenant?’ Shepard asked, a spark of heat like a signal flare gunning in his gut. He remembered Alenko standing between his legs, touching his mouth with the tip of his thumb, and didn’t defuse the feeling straight off, letting it sizzle into a slow burn instead.

Alenko cleared his throat, not enough to snap Shepard out of it. ‘No, I’m not… I remember how the first time turned out, Shepard. It’s not as official as the other offer, but… I am serious about it.’

‘Good,’ Shepard said. ‘Let’s see what you’ve got.’

The elevator ride down to Purgatory was what Shepard expected: crowded and only as awkward as he let it become. And he didn’t. He glanced over at Alenko a few times—some of them, Alenko was watching him back and some of them he wasn’t, but his skin was pink under the collar the whole way, and Shepard didn’t blame him. His own skin was hot, too.

That wasn’t all that was hot. Shepard couldn’t help but get the shake-down on the situation, taking a long hard look at the way Alenko fit in his fatigues, slimmer than the light armor allowed but not too skinny. He was somebody Shepard would’ve looked at twice if they’d met anywhere else, for any other reason, with Alenko wearing anything else—and Shepard had the opportunity to look more than twice now.

So he did.

Alenko made another rookie mistake, turning over his shoulder when he felt eyes on him. ‘Get used to it,’ Shepard said, stepping past a few of the regulars sitting outside the club, where they talked shit for no reason other than boredom and booze. ‘You’re a good-looking guy, Alenko. Everybody’s gonna be checking you out tonight.’

‘Kaidan,’ Alenko said. ‘You can call me—’

A blast of music hit them—along with the sights, the lights and the smoke. Shepard slung an arm around Alenko’s shoulders and tugged him toward the bar, where the krogan grunted a welcome and started on his usual.

‘What’re you drinking?’ Shepard asked. ‘First round’s on me and you pick up the rest. Deal?’

Spontaneity was like thruster fuel. It only burned for a set amount of time, while someone up front jammed the engines into making it catch. If you didn’t give it enough juice, it flickered out, and then you might as well have been running on empty.

So Shepard kept moving. And Alenko was moving with him.

‘Whiskey’s good,’ he said. ‘Deal, I mean.’

‘Your call,’ Shepard said, sliding him a shot across the bar, lifting his glass for a toast they didn’t need to make. ‘To bad offers and crazy salarians.’

‘To…pool boys on Thessia,’ Alenko added.

He definitely didn’t do this often.

A few more drinks, and Shepard would even think it was cute.

Alenko downed it easily enough while Shepard watched the bob of his throat as he swallowed. Another rookie mistake, showing off something that vulnerable, but Shepard wasn’t surprised to realize it was driving him wild. ‘You know, I would’ve gone up to you at the bar the other night if I wasn’t on the clock,’ he said, leaning against the counter, strobe lights bouncing off the bottles behind the bar.

‘I…would’ve figured turians’d be more your type,’ Alenko admitted.

‘Who said they aren’t?’ Shepard asked. ‘A guy can have more than one type.’

‘Yeah.’ Alenko’s voice was almost too soft to hear over the music. ‘Yeah, you don’t have to tell me about that.’

Ouch, Shepard thought. Dead on target. He was used to having keen aim, but a guy only liked to hit home when it was in his sights to start with. No one wanted to knock the training dummy over by mistake—a member of the training squad even less.

There was a story behind that sigh, probably a whole history for someone who cared to open up the sealing lock. Press the right buttons and Shepard could have Alenko’s past from start to finish, neat as any datapad biography cooked up by the crooked volus passport runners.

But Shepard had more than enough to keep him awake at night without hearing about someone else’s life. Alenko was the one who had to live it and live with it, nobody else.

‘So… You and Vakarian,’ Alenko said. He was well-groomed enough to not only pick up on the silence but also blame himself for it, like Shepard’s lack of a reply meant he was just too boring to talk to. Still, it put the crack about the turians into context. ‘You’re not… I mean, I’m not gonna get one between the eyes for this when I least expect it, right?’

Shepard tried to imagine it—Garrus crouched on the second-level dance floor, strobes reflecting off the barrel of his favorite rifle as he lined up his shot between the gyrating hips of the asari dancers. Even in his wildest dreams, the image didn’t click.

First of all, Garrus wasn’t the jealous type. At least, he wasn’t the type that thought he had to be jealous, which amounted to the same thing in the end.

‘Nah.’ Shepard polished off the rest of his drink. ‘We’re aren’t like that. …Not for lack of trying on my part, though.’

‘Right,’ Alenko said. The expression he wore told Shepard that he might’ve perfected his own poker face, but he was still a rookie at reading them off other people. ‘You’ll tell me if I have to dodge any suspicious beams of red light though, won’t you?’

‘Garrus doesn’t use targeting lasers,’ Shepard said. ‘Says they spoil the shot.’

‘It’s a little intimidating that you know that,’ Kaidan said. ‘Just…in the interests of full disclosure.’

‘Intimidation’s good.’ Shepard contemplated a second drink, then nodded when the bartender offered. ‘Keeps the blood hot. I know a couple of other things that’ll do that for you too, just as cheap.’

Alenko lifted a brow—the one with the three freckles clustered over the top. Shepard watched them settle into place. ‘Yeah?’

‘Yeah,’ Shepard said. There was no room for toasts the second time around, only the memory that this time, Alenko was buying. Shepard brought the glass to his mouth, pressing the cool rim to his bottom lip, feeling the heat of his breath fog it up so it wasn’t clear anymore. When he drank, it wasn’t just his blood that was hot but the pit of his stomach, something burning all the way through between his hips to the base of his spine. Alenko shifted, watching him swallow, and Shepard figured that was enough flirting for now. It was enough talking about other people, enough testing the waters, and enough ignoring everyone else who thought of dancing like something they did out on the floor, not up close and personal while trying to keep their best moves hidden.

Shepard leaned in. Alenko blinked, both of them smelling the alcohol on each other, the sweat, neither one coming in for a landing.

They weren’t pilots. They weren’t smooth like that.

‘Intimidated now?’ Shepard asked, lips moving in the air over Alenko’s mouth.

‘I don’t spook that easy, Shepard,’ Alenko replied.

It was the right answer.

Shepard veered off anyway. He wasn’t always the most private of guys, but he had Alenko to consider, whatever he would or wouldn’t regret in the morning. _Me and my bleeding heart_ , Shepard thought, not something he would’ve had to worry about if he was one of the turians Alenko’d pegged him for favoring. Maybe he did like them more than he should. Maybe the whole thick-skinned, cold-blooded thing was why. Maybe he didn’t care for rumors when he was at the center of them and maybe Purgatory was packed with off-duty Alliance boys and girls, letting their hair down for the night. It took all types to live it up off-hours, then gossip about it come morning.

Shepard nodded to one of the krogan bouncers across the main dance floor, an old friend who grunted at him as he passed by.

‘You’ve got a private room in the back, don’t you,’ Alenko said. He didn’t sound like he disapproved as much as he was contemplative. A whisper of intimidation never hurt that curiosity any, either, and it matched the beat of the music just fine.

It was good for him. Whatever he was learning, he was going to learn it fast.

There were guys in this world who weren’t the official landing strips. They were test sectors instead, all scuffed up, built to take the hard knocks and crashes that came with the zoning.

Shepard punched in the numbers and the door slid open. It wasn’t cheap, but he only rented it out a couple months of the year, when he wasn’t on Omega recouping what it cost to blow off steam on the Citadel once in a while. The music faded behind the reinforced panels when they rolled shut again, Alenko leaning back against them, Shepard taking a few steps away—then turning around to get a good look at the guy, from all the right angles.

It was good for both of them, nothing more than a way to loosen the pressure valves at the end of a rough day. The things they’d seen—there had to be a way of dealing with them that wasn’t seeing the bottom of a bottle one time too many. This was better, healthier for one thing, and a lot more fun besides.

‘So,’ Shepard said. ‘What’s a nice Alliance lieutenant like you doing in a place like this?’

‘You’ve been waiting on using that one all night,’ Alenko replied. ‘Haven’t you?’

Shepard took that step he’d been waiting for, one knee bumping between Alenko’s thighs. Gravity drew them closer and Shepard let it work for once, hands on Alenko’s hips, running around to the small of his back. It was slim down there, tight muscle under soft fabric, all good and stiff and clean.

‘Could be,’ Shepard said. It was easier to admit these things in the shadows, face hidden under Alenko’s collar and against his throat. He’d shaved sometime recently, though where he’d found time on their little ship, Shepard couldn’t say. All he knew was that there was no trace of stubble under his chin and along his neck, nothing but smooth skin for Shepard’s lips to slide over. ‘You kind of beat me to it, inviting me out like this. The spontaneous pick-up department’s where I _really_ shine.’

‘Believe me, this is— It’s pretty spontaneous by my standards,’ Alenko replied. He didn’t flinch, didn’t make anything easy for Shepard by spreading his legs or flushing pretty like he had on the elevator.

He knew how to hold his ground, something Shepard had figured out in the MSV Fedele, but it was nice seeing the intent replicated here. Alenko wasn’t someone who’d shy away from a merc getting in his face and that was enough of his life story to tell Shepard exactly what he needed—what he wanted—to know.

Not bad—for Alliance.

‘I believe you,’ Shepard said.

Whether he’d been waiting on it or not—whether he’d seen the tactic coming—Alenko still gasped when Shepard’s hands gripped his ass, pulling him forward to slip a leg between his thighs. Alenko’s muscles were tense under the fatigues, fabric not so thick that Shepard couldn’t also feel his body under it. There was something to be said for armor, whether it gleamed or whether it had its chips and dents, whether the man inside wore it like a burden or a second skin, but they were past that now. Shepard knew what Alenko’s armor said about him—enough to know he liked him better without it.

No one ever said it, but turians were lacking in the ass department. Shepard had never gotten close enough to Garrus for a comparison analysis, but he never got distracted standing behind him, either.

It was all in the hips, as far as turians were concerned.

Alenko pressed his forward and he was hard; they’d been hinting at it all night but now both of them were ready to show their hands. Shepard pushed him down on one strong thigh, braced between them and whatever leverage they had, knee banging the wall and an old injury holding against the assault.

There might’ve been some pent-up frustration in it. Shepard had been riding solo for a while now; flirting with Garrus made things easier some ways and less easy in others. It passed the time, but at the end of the day it left him like this, usually with nobody to kiss for it.

Not this time.

Alenko’s mouth opened under his and he gave as good as he got, for the most part—the only difference being that he didn’t grab for Shepard’s ass under the weave of his khakis and his collection of belts. He gripped a couple of the pouches instead like he was looking for leverage of his own, some kind of balance to even himself out. Even now, he had the brains to think of strategy first, grappling second.

Whoever’d trained him—Alliance, private school, biotic camp of some sort—knew what they were doing. The muscle that training had built didn’t go unappreciated, either, Shepard running his free hand up and down Alenko’s side, the other holding on to his ass. Alenko’s back hit the door and neither one of them asked the other, with a squeeze of their fingers or thighs, to slow things down.

It was what it was. Shepard was used to telling himself that.

‘Hey—’ Alenko said when Shepard pulled back, just enough to get his hand down the front of his fatigues. Shepard kissed the corner of his jaw, under his ear, nipping at the pulse.

Alenko stopped talking, probably because he also stopped breathing for a second there.

Beneath Shepard’s palm, he could feel cotton briefs, damp fabric that was softer than the rest, skin that was even more vulnerable, a dick that twitched as Shepard worked to get it free. He was sticking to a specific radius when it came to touch, feeling Alenko out, feeling him up. He got the belt undone one-handed and the fatigues pushed down over his ass, regulation shirt untucked, the snap at his throat already popped. The open collar showed off a triangle of skin Shepard hadn’t kissed yet but for whatever reason, he held off on it, until he realized the shadows there were nothing more than a trick of the bad lighting.

He thought about saying something, a joke to point out he knew he was moving fast. He shifted his hold on Alenko’s dick instead, waiting for it— _waiting for it_ —until Alenko’s head tipped back against the door and his throat bobbed on a sigh. There was something down there he liked, something Shepard was doing with his thumb against the slit, and the way he showed his appreciation was by biting his lower lip and shutting up.

So he was the quiet type. Shepard regulated his own breathing so he could hear the soft little sounds in the back of Alenko’s mouth, deep in his chest and humming through his skin. When he adjusted his hold and gave Alenko’s dick a tight stroke the sound got deeper, rougher, instead of higher up. It sounded like it could break at any second, Shepard’s fingers coming away sticky, wanting to put his mouth on it.

Wanting a lot of things, actually. Not all of them were as immediate; not all of them were something he knew he could have.

He dropped down on the same bad knee, knowing—after all this time—it could still support the weight. Alenko’s hands moved after him, brushing the back of his head, cupping the shell of his ear. There was a different urgency to the gestures, like he wasn’t looking for the money spot, the one thing that’d keep his advantage with the high ground.

Shepard didn’t think about it. Thinking about things and doing them never got along, like a batarian and a spacer in the same bar fight. 

Thinking about _batarians_ was gonna blow the whole deal right there.

But it wasn’t that kind of night.

Shepard drew in a sharp breath, not paying attention to the way the air went out of Kaidan’s lungs at the same time. Some of the fight went out of him along with it, making them both grateful for the door, double-reinforced so no one could put a bullet in Shepard’s head while he slept. He knew what it looked like—he knew the kind of guys who _usually_ paid to have a back room in an unsanctioned nightclub like Purgatory—but sometimes a merc just needed somewhere to rest his head for the night and the security in the place was the best you could buy on the Citadel.

Now, that place to rest his head was between Alenko’s legs, mouth on his cock—steady, confident, relaxed, like this _wasn’t_ the first time he’d had the chance since jumping off-world with one of the bigger cartels in the Sol system. That partnership hadn’t lasted, but Shepard’s knack for the job did. He was a natural in a calling where being honest could leave you dead first and broke second. Not much margin for error on Omega—some people claimed the Citadel was better, but that was only because they didn’t know where to look.

‘Shit,’ Alenko said. His hand was on Shepard’s head, scrabbling for purchase he wouldn’t find without more hair to hold onto. He didn’t stop swearing after that, a whole stream of soft curses that were only _mostly_ Earth-based. Shepard caught some turian flavor in there—plus one that definitely came out krogan. It was more of a ringing endorsement than any recruiting vid Shepard had ever seen.

Join the Alliance Marines and you’ll travel the whole galaxy.

He was willing to bet Lieutenant Alenko never would’ve imagined he’d come all the way down to _this_ seedy pocket of Council space, but Shepard wouldn’t hold that against him. There were too many surprises out there, too many of them personal.

His hand was on Alenko’s thigh so he could feel every twitch, every jump in the muscle when Shepard did something he liked. Normally it was a hell of a job taking his mouth out of the equation—talking was Shepard’s best asset, even between the sheets or up against a wall—but it didn’t seem like Alenko was having any second thoughts about how this one was playing out.

Kaidan, Shepard remembered. Alenko had said something about calling him Kaidan.

It made sense, sucking the guy off and all, to use his first name.

The thought was enough to make Shepard huff, heat skirting warm flesh and a little clutch of dark hair. It was Kaidan who tried to warn him, not Lieutenant Alenko, nails digging into Shepard’s scalp—and it was Kaidan Shepard ignored, dragging his teeth over the vein underneath, encouraging him to let go for maybe the first time in his Alliance-sanctioned life.

Kaidan came. Shepard had been waiting for it for what felt like days. But when he listened, there were no more curses, like everything Kaidan had was gone in the moment, and his voice was all used up.

A guy could get used to having that effect on someone. Not that Shepard had ever tried the stuff, but he figured the rush was the same as what non-biotics got from dusting up with Red Sand, the highs that made them feel bigger, stronger, and most of all _better_ than anyone else.

Shepard wiped the corner of his mouth. He made a point of meeting Kaidan in the eye—and then Kaidan made a point of getting down on his knees, kissing him hard, hands still on the back of his head.

‘What’d you do that for?’ Shepard asked.

Mouthing off. It was what he did best.

‘I don’t know,’ Kaidan admitted. ‘What did you do _that_ for?’

‘I dunno,’ Shepard said. ‘Because I could, mostly. Same reason I do anything.’

This time, Kaidan was the one who huffed, his hot breath on Shepard’s jaw, his nose pressed into Shepard’s cheek. He rested his hand over Shepard’s dick—not like an afterthought but like he’d been thinking about it all along—and bit his bottom lip when Shepard sighed, _yeah._

‘Bed’s harder than it looks,’ he added, right against Kaidan’s ear.

‘Really? I thought it was a couch,’ Kaidan replied.

Shepard pulled him up and Kaidan followed. They avoided bumping into the table and Shepard avoided the idea of getting to it right on top of that instead of somewhere more sensible. He wasn’t as young as he used to be, for one thing, and he had to save up his grand gestures for when they counted, not for when they didn’t. He took Kaidan down with him onto the bed—couch, maybe, but it was all about how he used it, not what it was meant to be—and Kaidan’s thighs spread out over his lap, knees on either side, the fabric of his fatigues straining at his thighs.

Neat as they’d been when they started, they were all messy now.

Shepard guessed he should’ve felt guilty over that. Instead, he ran his hands over Kaidan’s bare ass, pushing the elastic of his briefs along the way.

‘Hey, c’mon,’ Kaidan said. It wasn’t a superior officer kind of voice; it reminded Shepard of the thruster fuel they’d watched together on that old cruiser, burning just outside of reach. Which was a good thing—‘cause if they got too close, they’d light themselves on fire.

‘C’mon what,’ Shepard started, but didn’t finish. Kaidan worked two of his belts undone with both hands and a tenderness Shepard hadn’t seen before, a focus he had, while Kaidan bit his bottom lip again, sucking it up between his teeth. Shepard tried to kiss after it but Kaidan was determined, all business with his fingers, getting Shepard’s dick out and doing all the things Shepard liked best.

He’d probably been the one to give it away, to show his hand, letting Kaidan come first—but it still got him where it was aimed, right beneath the open belts.

‘Hell yeah,’ Shepard groaned, leaning back, closing his eyes. On the lids he could see all the stars he’d flown by and never stopped to look at twice, an old view from a skylight, when he still thought about space as a kid who didn’t know any better, who thought letting it eat you up was a good thing. He came hard into Kaidan’s hands while Kaidan watched him, while Shepard squeezed his ass, just holding on.

*


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The morning after turns to two months later.

Both of them knew when morning hit, a sense of timing that didn’t let either of them sleep for more than a few hours in one stretch. Shepard shifted, something heavy weighing him down, before he remembered—halfway between a grunt and a grin.

Alenko had spent the night. _Kaidan_ had spent the night, without a second thought for the dance that meant in the morning, shuffling around what’d happened between them and trying not to feature it too heavily. And Shepard knew better than to hope for a repeat performance—he knew the score, and he didn’t need Kaidan’s stiff posture to back it up.

But Shepard’s muscles were sore when he stretched. For once it _wasn’t_ from fighting off batarian pirates all night.

That kind of thing put a smile on your face no matter whoyou were or how much sleep you had under your belt. Shepard couldn’t even bring himself to feel like too much of a sucker about leaving his omni-tool off for the night, figuring Garrus would find a way if he needed to get in touch.

It was nice to be off the clock for a while. Especially since Shepard’s line of work was supposed to mean no clocks at all.

‘Hey,’ Kaidan said, breaking the quiet.

Morning was about the only time Purgatory shut down—and even then it was just a matter of hours before the music started up again. Shore leave wasn’t restricted to late-night and with the lights in the Presidium never going dark, it was safe to say the Citadel didn’t play by conventional solar hours.

Shepard would take the silence where and when he could get some, sliding his hand to rest warm at the small of Kaidan’s back. He pulled him close in the same motion, tangling their legs together beneath the thin blanket.

‘Hey yourself,’ Shepard replied. ‘You got something against taking the easy exit?’

‘It’s not exactly my style.’ Kaidan shifted closer, resting his weight on one elbow to sit up. ‘You really weren’t kidding about this bed. I think I’ve caught better sleep in a colony supply silo.’

‘Yep,’ Shepard said. ‘Just lucky the bed wasn’t the _only_ thing that was hard last night.’

Kaidan laughed. He tried not to, but that only made it worse, the sound coming up from his chest and getting stuck in his throat, setting itself free when he ducked his head.

It wasn’t exactly the passionate goodbye kiss Shepard might’ve pictured. But then, he didn’t have as much experience to apply to the morning after situation as he did with the night before scenario.

‘Come on,’ Kaidan said. ‘After that crack, you’re lucky there’s no window to climb out of.’

‘Why do you think I chose the place?’ Shepard asked.

Kaidan’s silence said a lot more than it didn’t, like he didn’t know, like he was trying to figure it out. ‘Hey,’ he said again, while Shepard rubbed something out of his eye with the heel of his hand. ‘…Never mind.’

‘Yeah,’ Shepard agreed.

It was better that way.

He watched Kaidan get dressed—it wasn’t to make him uncomfortable, just to enjoy the view, the curve of his ass as he bent down to find one of his boots, then sat on the edge of Shepard’s bed to put it on. Shepard could see his shoulders rising and falling with every breath he took, and the way his muscles shifted when they tightened, Kaidan pulling on his bootlaces until they were regulation tight. Shepard knew what the muscles felt like underneath, how they held firm when Shepard held onto them. He knew all the little clenches and shivers, a tiny scar on the back of Kaidan’s ribs from something when he was younger, much, maybe from a vaccination or an accident. It didn’t matter, but Shepard knew what it felt like anyway, brushing his thumb against his own thigh through the sheets when he thought about it.

As far as shows went—as far as seeing the back end of somebody—it had its charms. Shepard leaned on one elbow, reaching out to tuck Kaidan’s shirt into his belt around the back, just as Kaidan reached behind to do the same. Their fingers brushed and of course it brought up some of the stuff they’d done last night, Kaidan’s fingers on Shepard’s dick, how honest and earnest they were. How good they’d been, taking in what Shepard liked and giving back as good as Kaidan had got.

Not too many people bothered with doing things that way.

Shepard appreciated it.

He showed his appreciation by untucking the shirt again, giving the small of Kaidan’s back a rub. Then neither of them knew what the hell to do with that so Shepard drew back, and that was the end of things, Kaidan looking all ship-shape again, good enough to slap on the cover of a join-the-Alliance-today vid package.

Shepard had seen a few of those, previews before a Blasto movie, trying to get the audience all hyped up. It never worked—the shots of space were enough to make a guy’s heart grow ten sizes, but then they had to ruin it with all the crew cuts and the salutes and the marching orders, clean-shaven faces looking way too bright for what it was they were seeing.

Kaidan turned, looking at Shepard over his shoulder.

‘If you say hey again, Kaidan, I’m going to start to think all the sex last night scrambled your brains,’ Shepard told him.

Kaidan laughed again, hand on the back of his neck, half his face hidden by his forearm. Shepard realized he was yawning, not exactly covering it up, but the instinct to keep that private was something Shepard could and did understand.

‘I was thinking maybe we could do this again sometime, that’s all.’ Kaidan’s boots were both on and both he and Shepard knew this was goodbye, no more fanfare, no more salutes or clean-shaven faces. Shepard scratched the stubble on his jaw while he measured Kaidan’s reaction, his offer, his suggestion, the bravery it took to say something like that in the first place.

He had a pair of balls on him, at least.

And Shepard would know. They’d been right next to his mouth last night.

‘I mean… No. That’s what I mean. You can take it or leave it, but it’s on the table,’ Kaidan said.

 _Always with the poker face_ , Shepard thought.

‘You know how to contact me,’ he said.

Just like that, Kaidan relaxed, shoulders easing out. ‘Yeah, I do. I’ll see you around, Shepard.’

Shepard shrugged, though it didn’t have the same ease as always, hard as it was to get across from that position on the bed. He didn’t get up and show Kaidan to the door; he was still thinking over that offer, the cards Kaidan didn’t have up his sleeve, the ones he’d left for Shepard to pick up—if he wanted them.

He didn’t think it’d be so bad. They’d definitely been good together.

‘Not if I see you first, Kaidan,’ Shepard said.

*

Alenko didn’t call.

He was back to Alenko after that, just another Alliance lieutenant Shepard had known, a resource they’d tapped to help Garrus with his salarian problem. Whatever _tapping_ might’ve happened afterward was off the books, which was how Shepard liked to work to begin with.

There were plenty of reasons why a guy like Alenko wouldn’t call back a merc on the Citadel. Williams had knocked some sense into him—or he’d done it for himself—or that implant of his had quit rattling his brain long enough for him to realize what he’d been up to. The list was long enough that it would’ve been more out of character if he _had_ called.

There was nothing to dwell on, so Shepard didn’t.

Jobs came easy to a merc working both the Presidium and the lower wards. He was busy enough to get lost in the business, chasing down a ring of Red Sand dealers who’d been sold as slaves to the batarians, then breaking up a volus embezzling scheme that’d gone south on Omega. One of the little round guys had claimed to be a biotic god, which kept it interesting—and neither Garrus nor Shepard let laughing affect their aim any.

Small in the back of his mind, in a voice that sounded a lot like the childhood Shepard never got to experience, something said there was always the chance Alenko was KIA.

There was no way to know for sure without making a conscious effort—and a guy could only listen to so many sanctioned ANN broadcasts before he turned the corner and went nuts. They were all focusing on the same situation brewing on Eden Prime anyway, not enough to give any details, but every reporter out there seemed to know it was important enough to cover it.

Whatever was going on, it was outside Shepard’s jurisdiction.

None of his damn business, in other words.

Meanwhile, the Presidium was full of people who had it way worse: parents who couldn’t get information on their kids who’d joined their marines and married-ins who hadn’t heard from their spouses in weeks. Set against that, Shepard’s problems seemed like one white dwarf in the interconnected galaxies. Not a small fry, not by a long shot, but compared to everything else…

Basically, there _was_ no comparison.

Coming back to the Citadel from Omega wasn’t anything like coming home. But it was familiar, a distinction Shepard understood better than almost anybody else. He could step off a transport and breathe in the processed, closed-system air, no hint of blood on batarian armor or the sweat on a krogan’s back once you cleared the docking bay, and that was that. Pretty. Clean. Just as shiny as a new set of armor, a suit that hadn’t seen any action yet.

That didn’t quiet down the gossip—what with everyone talking about Eden Prime, there was no end to the shit they could shoot. Some people called it a _nasty business_ but that was what they said when they couldn’t picture it, couldn’t quantify it, didn’t know what language to use to get across _massacre_. Out of sight, out of mind for most, and for the rest—they probably thought about it too much for their own good. Skirting the line between wasn’t easy, even for somebody who made it their life’s work not to get caught.

Shepard paused, fresh off the transport, to check out the local scene, to catch his breath and mostly to enjoy the ambiance. The docking bay on the Citadel was the one place appearances couldn’t be regulated, ordered into something nice and sanitary and neat, and with everybody passing through, you got a clearer picture of the galaxies, the tensions, a fair representation of all the races all together. How much they didn’t trust each other. How easy it was to let that go and go on their way. Passing in and out of sectors, playing cards together and betting too much, cheating was like currency, fights flaring up and dying out faster than you could bat an eye.

Shepard rubbed the muscle above his knee. The slaving ring deal hadn’t gone down without a fight—just the way Shepard liked it, but ricochet off a dead batarian ended up bouncing one of Garrus’s shots straight back into Shepard’s armor above the jointed plate. ‘Just like an indirect kiss,’ he’d said at the time, flashing Garrus a grin from under his visor, but the next day the bruise down there was about the size of a hanar—not to mention the same color as one.

There was a scar on the knee itself, something that didn’t fade like the bruise, and the old ache was starting to piss him off.

Maybe there was something to be said for keeping a by-the-books guy around to apply medigel after all.

Shepard didn’t give himself time to think about it—not because it meant anything but because he could feel the prickle at the back of his neck that meant somebody nearby had taken specific interest in him. It seemed like every time he showed up back at the Citadel, there was somebody trying—and failing—to tail him without him catching on.

It could’ve been batarians again. After the Red Sand business, they’d be even less inclined to cut him a deal. And if Shepard could tell when two eyes were watching him, the extra sets were like double the warning.

Shepard glanced across the bay. There weren’t any batarian ships in; the only batarian he saw was one working a tattoo place, taking five while his latest client tried to recover on the table.

Other than that, Shepard saw the usual collection of miscreants and lost souls, turians and asari and a nice handful of humans, just to keep things interesting.

So it was the two Alliance grunts who had him made. Shepard knew that because they caught his gaze when he saw them—then started for him, no subtlety or sense of timing at all.

Shepard didn’t have to ask himself what they were there about, old business or bad blood showing up out of the blue to bite him in the ass. He recognized Williams by her shoulders first and her attitude second and finally by her face. She didn’t have Alenko with her and Shepard found himself a nice spot with his back to a wall—not against it, but using it to his advantage. Sometimes, a guy had to make strategic sacrifice, giving up an escape route just to have a nice solid hunk of metal shielding them from behind.

‘Shepard, right?’ Williams said. Like she didn’t remember. Like there wasn’t a whole file out there somewhere, flagged special for whenever anyone wearing Alliance blues felt like giving up their shore leave to hassle an honest gun-for-hire. Even worse, Williams was grinning, which meant someone was in trouble.

She’d never smiled at him before. Shepard didn’t like his odds.

‘Depends who’s asking,’ Shepard said. He didn’t go for his pistol. Despite what all the vids said about cornered animals, the predictable move wasn’t always the best one.

Besides, a shoot-out in the docking bay would mean a headache for C-Sec—and Garrus hated paperwork almost as much as Shepard did.

‘Far as I can tell, you’re not the type to scatter aliases.’ Williams nodded to the jarhead with her, who was none too subtle about taking flanking position. ‘Which means you’re Shepard no matter what.’

‘Don’t tell me you missed me,’ Shepard said. Showing teeth didn’t mean he was smiling, but he had a face that just wouldn’t sit still. He could feel the jarhead staring at him, taking in the scars that twisted when Shepard’s mouth stretched. ‘I meant to write, I just didn’t have your frequency. Why don’t you give it to me now—and I’ll leave you something to look forward to later on that omni-tool of yours.’

‘Cute.’ Williams didn’t take out her rifle, but she didn’t have to—the threat was right there in her voice. ‘We’re taking you in—so quit flapping and march.’

Shepard had been at this too long for his blood to run cold. He’d done a mission once with Garrus on Noveria and nothing had compared to the chill in his bones after that mess—though he’d gotten a few good cuddling for warmth jokes out of it, even if he was the soft and squishy one, not Garrus.

Still, there was an obvious temperature drop in the docking bay. It was just luck Shepard was human—his warm blood could take it better than a turian’s.

He didn’t mind the cold, so long as there was the promise of some heat after. Too much heat, on the other hand, could get a guy burned.

Too bad Williams was as close to the cuddling type as Garrus. All hard edges, even with the armor off.

Shepard rubbed his wrist, sending a coded message to Garrus while he was down there. _Don’t wait up_ usually meant _I’m in trouble now, but unless you want to pick up some matching scars, don’t come sniffing around_. He just had to hope Garrus wouldn’t listen to the advice, same as always.

‘Let me guess,’ Shepard said, already pushing off the wall to make like a good little merc and go quiet-like. ‘I come with you nice and easy and _don’t_ make a scene—and you guys might get me a cup of coffee before you throw me in somebody’s brig, right?’

‘No coffee,’ Williams replied.

At least she bothered to be honest. There wasn’t going to be any time off for good behavior but until Shepard knew what the hell was going on, the only way to gather some intel was to play along—whatever game this was, one with Alliance holding all the cards and not bothering to tell him the rules before they dealt him in.

Considering how much they loved hitting people with rulebooks, it was _real_ funny how they didn’t like letting anyone else know what those rules were.

‘That’s what I thought,’ Williams said as Shepard fell into step by her side.

‘C’mon, Williams.’ Shepard didn’t like being flanked by a guy with a skull thicker than a krogan’s who looked about as punch-happy as one, too, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t have some fun with the better half of his escort. ‘Tell me you weren’t looking forward to me giving you trouble just a _little_.’

‘I was looking forward to it a lot, actually,’ Williams said. It wasn’t much of an admission, seeing as how it came so easy. ‘Too bad you let me down, Shepard. I would’ve liked to teach you a lesson right there in front of everyone.’

‘So _that’s_ what you’re into?’ Shepard whistled. ‘Wouldn’t think it to look at you. I can work with that.’

The fresh meat on Shepard’s other side grunted, gearing up to knock some manners into him. Shepard held up his hands, empty palms out, keeping his eye on Williams but making sure the other guy was always in his periphery.

‘Hey, I’m being as polite as I get,’ Shepard said. ‘That’s saying something. I just wanted to point out that the best part about Alliance is what you guys get up to behind closed doors.’

‘Don’t rile Jenkins up,’ Williams warned. ‘I’ll have him in the brig if he tries anything on you while you _aren’t_ reaching for your gun, but that doesn’t mean he won’t think it’s worth it.’

‘You like that kind of show too, Williams?’ Shepard asked.

Williams didn’t reply to that. Her jaw was tight, her lips pressed together in a thin line, staring straight in front of her as she led them onto the elevator.

Shepard sighed, leaving the docking bay behind. He wanted more time with it, but if wishes were cruisers, Shepard would have an Alliance fleet to command at will.

There was no more small talk after that, Shepard’s arms folded over his chest as they rose too many levels to count. _On the up and up at last_ , Shepard thought, and snorted, a dry laugh that filled the elevator with sound. Meathead Jenkins wouldn’t stop staring and Shepard gave him his best angles, a look at every visible scar, before the doors slid open and Williams stepped out.

‘This way,’ she said.

‘No kidding,’ Shepard replied.

‘You know, I _like_ the brig,’ Jenkins pointed out, almost like he thought he was being subtle. Almost like he thought he even knew what subtle meant.

‘Really? I’d never have guessed,’ Shepard said.

They were in full Alliance territory now; everyone was wearing blues and medals, if they’d earned them—if someone else had decided, somewhere along the way, that they’d earned them. Shepard didn’t tug all self-conscious at his own clothes, though he did tell Williams that if he’d known, he would’ve dressed for the occasion.

‘Didn’t realize there was a dress code,’ he added, and Williams snorted.

‘Like you would’ve been able to blend in,’ Jenkins said.

‘Why not?’ Shepard ran a hand over his head, feeling the tickle of freshly-shorn hair. ‘I’ve got the cut.’

‘Takes a lot more than that to make a soldier,’ Jenkins said.

As if Shepard didn’t already know that. It was what he’d tried to tell Alenko once, back before they’d got revenge and got into each other’s pants—in that order.

But Jenkins wouldn’t have appreciated the anecdote.

Another quick glance around told Shepard everything he needed to know—there was no C-Sec peppering the mix. Alliance had cleared jurisdiction with them first, made sure they wouldn’t interfere; somewhere out there, Captain Bailey was hopping mad, and Shepard had to work at not grinning when he pictured it.

Williams hadn’t come out with his charges, whatever they were, but Shepard knew better than to push his luck. Tempting fate in a situation full of unknowns wasn’t exactly his style. Betting blind was the surest way to set yourself up for failure, and _Purgatory_ was more than just a club in the wards.

Then again, it was tough to picture the Alliance handing him over to the most notorious prison ship in the Hourglass Nebula.

There were vectored blue symbols of Earth stamped on the doorways and walls, marking the sector off as the human embassy. C-Sec commander kept his office up here, as did humanity’s very own Council ambassador. Williams led Shepard and Jenkins right past those doors and in through a smaller one that flared red at first, fading to green when she pounded on it.

‘Always wanted to try that,’ Shepard said.

Williams rolled her eyes.

He was about to follow it up by saying something about how she was good with her hands—or how her eyes looked extra pretty when they were filled with contempt—but then he got a good look at the guy sitting behind door number one. That was all it took for Shepard to realize Williams was a lot more dangerous than your typical Alliance soldier.

She’d gone and _ambushed_ him.

‘Shepard,’ Alenko said, rising to his feet.

‘I guess it’s too late to try _you’ll never take me alive_ ,’ Shepard said.

The tension in the room didn’t last for more than a second. It was enough that a guy like Jenkins could’ve recognized it— _if_ Shepard and Alenko hadn’t been so good at clearing the air right away, shoving it down, covering it up. The rest was conjecture; there was no way of telling whether or not Alenko felt it was still there or cared that it was, not underneath the uniform he was sporting: crisp and clean, no sign of wrinkling from when someone had pushed his fatigues down to his knees.

That didn’t mean it hadn’t happened. Once, more than once, when Shepard was there—when he wasn’t. But if Alenko wasn’t letting on, then the least Shepard could do was prove he had his own set of rules, his own unimpeachable poker face. He just wore it differently, collar unbuttoned, belts buckled loose and low.

Shepard put on his finest meeting-with-the-big-boys grin and headed over for a seat, with only a fancy table separating him and the guy who hadn’t called.

If this was his way of doing it after the fact, at least he had style—crazy as it was.

‘You know me,’ Shepard added. ‘I don’t do the whole salute your superior thing. Can you still slap me in the brig if I’m not, technically, an inferior officer?’ He touched the back of the chair, turning it once before he made to sit down. ‘If you can, I want you to put me in with Jenkins. The two of us got real close on our way up here.’

‘Just reminding you, Commander,’ Williams told Alenko, straightening up, doing everything formal the way she was trained to, and even making it look easy in the process. ‘This is the guy _you_ called in.’

‘At ease,’ Alenko said, right as Shepard pointed out the obvious, ‘Commander?’

Alenko cleared his throat.

‘Astute observations, as always, Shepard,’ Williams said.

Shepard sat down, crossing one leg wide over his knee, which he held with both hands. Everybody had the high ground now except for him, which was what set him apart from them. He wasn’t trying. He’d throw off their balance just by being there—by refusing to be anyone other than himself.

‘It’s a recent development,’ Alenko added.

‘And nobody thought to tell me. Why do I feel like you’re keeping me in the dark on purpose?’ Shepard fixed his eyes on the shiny medal Alenko had pinned to the front of his chest. He knew what it was; he’d seen it in all the Blasto movies and he wasn’t the only one who’d be able to pick it out of a crowd. The problem was, it looked like a joke or a costume. It didn’t make any sense, although some of the details were starting to add up. ‘If I knew congratulations for a promotion were in order, I’d’ve brought some whiskey. What was your favorite again? Personally, I always go for the TM-88 Peruvian. It’s good for sharing with somebody special, you know?’

‘This isn’t about you, Shepard,’ Williams said.

‘It’s not?’ Shepard glanced around the room, winking at Jenkins as he went. ‘We keelhaul anybody else in while I wasn’t looking? Me and my big ego, always assuming when it comes to Alliance interest.’

‘Lieutenant Jenkins,’ Alenko said, nodding.

Shepard couldn’t help himself. ‘Think that’s your cue to leave, Jenkins,’ he said, ‘but don’t worry. I’m sure I’ll be seeing you again soon. _Probably_ in the brig.’

‘Was all that necessary?’ Williams asked, as Jenkins glowered his way out of the meeting room.

Alenko looked like he didn’t know the answer to that—and also like saying _I don’t know_ was something he had to physically hold back on.

So the tension in the room was from more than unfinished business, a two month old mistake that didn’t matter to either of them anyway. It was from more than Jenkins’s bad attitude, also, since he was gone and that storm cloud with him. It wasn’t so much about the past as it was about the present—and the future—and Shepard licked a healing split in his lip, something nobody’d dabbed medigel on with calm, cool fingers.

‘So…Commander, huh?’ Shepard kept his posture easy, though he could feel how heavy he was in the chair, waiting for somebody else to sit down across the way. Anything other than all that standing around looking serious. ‘And…well, that pretty little medal you’re sporting must be new too, right? So tell me, Alenko—how’d a nice guy like you get made Spectre?’

Williams huffed—not all the way to a laugh, but not disapproving either. They were making progress, the two of them. If she hadn’t been Alliance, Shepard got the feeling she’d have made an excellent addition to the team.

As for Alenko, he just looked uncomfortable. Lucky for him he wore that look better than anyone else Shepard knew, mouth thin and crooked, thick brows drawn together. There were frown lines above those freckles now, and they didn’t ease off even when Alenko stopped frowning, enough little differences in his face that it made Shepard wonder what’d changed in his _,_ and whether there was anyone around but Garrus to notice them.

‘It’s…complicated.’ Alenko crossed his arms over his chest, too low to hide the medal. His sleeves were rolled up, no new scars on his forearms. ‘I don’t think I’m supposed to say it, but I feel like it had more to do with luck and timing than anything else.’

‘It’d be the first time we had something like luck _or_ timing on our side for a while then,’ Williams said.

Alenko didn’t laugh, even if it was the closest thing to a joke Shepard had heard Williams crack yet. There was so much more to this than a forgotten night in a club’s back room, though Shepard wouldn’t have minded some nod to the idea that he wasn’t the only one thinking about it.

Not the time, Shepard reminded himself. First was figuring out what they’d hauled him in for, since it wasn’t personal.

They weren’t exactly spelling it out for him, but Shepard could read between the lines. Whatever had happened on Alliance side of things, it’d kept them hopping since the Saleon job. Worse, it’d been enough to draw Council attention and make them decide it was finally time to start handing out Spectre titles to humans. Shepard was no asari, but he knew trouble when he caught its scent—like the burnt ozone trail of a wounded ship, limping into dock after an encounter with batarians.

Any mission that needed Spectre authority was one the Alliance couldn’t solve on its own. They’d gone to the council for outside help—and now Williams had dragged Shepard in to see spanking-new Spectre Alenko for himself. Presumably because they needed him for something. Presumably _not_ because they wanted to make him Spectre, too.

It was a dance Shepard had done before, but the act?

That was all new.

‘So,’ Shepard said. Nothing squeaked when he shifted his weight, cheap clothes against expensive furniture. ‘Something tells me you’re sitting on something hotter than a pair of coordinates for our runaway butcher this time. Am I right so far?’

Nobody rushed to answer all at once. Then, Alenko gave a tight little nod.

‘But considering Williams over there doesn’t have a blemish on her record and you’ve got too many officials to clear your every move with,’ Shepard continued, ‘you’re asking yourself, _how do I actually get things done around here_ , and also, _how glad am I that Shepard didn’t take me up on that offer way back when_?’

‘Offer?’ Williams asked.

‘It’s not that hard to fill in the details.’ Shepard made a bold gamble, kicking his feet up onto the desk, scratching at an itch through the sole of one with the opposite heel. He’d end up ruining the nice thing he and Williams finally had going with that kind of behavior, but there was no other choice. Somebody had to clear the air, lighten the mood.

Alenko looked like somebody’d sewn him into that outfit _and_ into his skin. He also looked like he hadn’t slept in a few days, not that Shepard was looking too close or anything. He was starting to wish he’d listened to more of the radio chatter—but during a job out in Omega with angry batarians hot on Shepard’s trail the whole time, he hadn’t kept up on his Alliance news. The whole Spectre thing must’ve gone down while Shepard was in transit, nursing his bruises and looking forward to a couple of days of his very own, privately sanctioned shore leave.

‘I’d rather not, if it’s all the same to you,’ Williams said. ‘Maybe you should have a little more respect for—’

‘For a guy who’s going to have to spend the rest of his assignment dealing with too much respect and not enough action?’ Shepard snorted. ‘You think I’d be doing him any favors, giving him all the lip service and none of the action he needs?’

The words weren’t enough to make Alenko flush under the collar. Shepard almost wished they were, even if he was proud of the guy when they didn’t.

‘He’s right,’ Alenko said. ‘We need to start thinking about people who can solve problems, not pass them up to the next level. That _doesn’t_ mean,’ Alenko added quickly, ‘that I’m looking for more messes to clean up or anything that doesn’t check out. But I know your style from the Heart job, Shepard. I was there. I know you’re… I know you’re good for it.’

 _Good for what_ , he didn’t clarify.

Shepard came close to grinning at that, but he knew it didn’t touch his eyes, didn’t even wrinkle them at the corners.

‘So you were in the market for a merc and you knew just the guy. Never mind he might’ve been busy with his own thing, ‘cause this is more important.’ Shepard waited for the answer he knew would come, the muscles in the backs of his thighs starting to tighten up. The position wasn’t comfortable, but it’d been his choice—and now, he had to hold it.

‘It _is_ more important,’ Alenko said.

Because the batarian slavers and the poor sons of bitches they’d rounded up hadn’t been on the books, so Alenko hadn’t read about them. Because the Alliance was all about proportions, never thinking about the little guy when faced with the so-called ‘bigger’ picture.

Anyway, Alenko was probably right—at least from a certain perspective.

‘How much are you talking here?’ Shepard asked. ‘I know service to my race and the galaxy is gonna help me get to sleep at night, but it doesn’t pay the bills. It doesn’t tell me what I’m going up against—who I’m working with, either.’

‘The team’s something you’d have a say in.’ Alenko uncrossed his arms, finally, though Shepard had to admit the pose made him look the part. He was playing it well; he just needed more polish around the edges, maybe a few scars like Bailey’s, for anyone to take him seriously. The thought of that made Shepard grind his teeth, but it was bound to happen. Sooner or later, they all wore their action on their faces—unless there wasn’t any action to wear. ‘It’s still up in the air. The situation on Eden Prime… Things are pretty tense right now.’

‘Yeah,’ Shepard agreed. ‘It was a…what’s it everybody’s always saying? A nasty business?’

Both Williams and Alenko had heard the phrase before, from the looks of it. Shepard kicked his boots down, landing them square on the floor.

‘You know this is way too close to official for my tastes,’ he said.

‘Nobody’s forcing your hand in this, Shepard,’ Alenko replied.

Like he actually believed it when he said that.

‘Sure,’ Shepard said. ‘But I get to pick my team.’

‘How about you get to walk out of here without me getting in the way?’ Williams offered.

As far as offers went, it could’ve been worse.

*


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shepard sucks at driving the Mako. He sucks less at helping Kaidan out with his headaches.

Garrus had his doubts about the team, but Garrus wasn’t the one with the fancy connections to the first-ever human Spectre. He didn’t get a choice, not this time.

‘All _I’m_ saying is, I don’t see why we had to take the krogan.’ Garrus braced his hand against the roof of the Mako, flinching when they hit a bump in the road and nearly pulled a somersault. Alenko had given up the steering wheel to Shepard right after they’d landed topside—and he was only now beginning to understand why.

The damn thing had looked so innocent in the shuttle bay where they’d taken up residence, two mercs and a runaway C-Sec officer. The krogan in question was Urdnot Wrex, an asset Shepard had discovered over drinks in Chora’s Den. They were friends as much as anyone could be with a krogan, which meant they’d smashed heads together on the same team more than they had each other’s.

He was a good guy. Plus, he made the rest of the crew nervous, and Shepard wouldn’t turn down a shot at seeing Garrus _or_ Alenko sweat.

‘Don’t distract me, Garrus,’ Shepard said. He took one hand off the wheel, just to see if it’d make Alenko turn green in the passenger seat. ‘I think those are lava pits down there.’

Sure, it was childish. Even a merc usually knew better than to mess with his superiors, if only because they controlled the flow of credits. But there were only so many ways Shepard could see getting through sitting this close to Commander-Spectre Alenko without the air getting hot and close between them. No one needed that reminder.

Shepard sure as hell didn’t.

First rule of poker: _if you’re not holding the right cards, bluff until you get them._

‘This Dr. T’Soni had better be worth it,’ Alenko said. He’d been going over the report on his omni-tool, but when Shepard took a corner on two wheels he closed it quick, pressing a hand over his mouth.

‘I guess not everyone in this vehicle has an iron turian stomach,’ Shepard said, knowing full well it was about as nice as taking his second hand off the wheel. ‘Look, Garrus. No—’

‘—more of that, unless you want Wrex to show us what krogans can do when you upset _theirs_ ,’ Garrus replied.

Shepard played the rest of the ride with a little more steering, a little less showing off. By the time they got out of the Mako, Shepard’s insides felt like they’d been scrambled, for more than the usual reasons, and his first few steps were wobbly, even though he was taking them on solid ground, behind the nice, comfortable air filtering system of an Alliance-grade helmet.

Alliance armor. Now there was something Shepard didn’t think he’d be carrying anytime soon.

The best part was looking forward to the ride back with Dr. T’Soni, an asari they weren’t hiring for dancing or for pheromones.

‘It’s gonna be crowded back there,’ Shepard warned her, leaning against the side of the Mako—metal still warm from its hard work, tires stinking of burning rubber.

‘Yes,’ Garrus agreed. ‘And Shepard’s just another human who likes to brag about being a terrible driver.’

Shepard covered his heart with one gloved hand. ‘You get me right here every time—you know that, Garrus?’

‘Quit flirtin’ and drive,’ Wrex told them. ‘It’s not the _ride_ that’s gonna make me _sick_.’

One big happy family. Shepard adjusted his sightlines in the mirror up front as he swung behind the wheel, catching sight of Alenko’s reflection. Their Spectre-Commander was rubbing his temple with his knuckles; it didn’t last, but the lines on his forehead were deeper than ever.

That was because his life was exactly what he’d made of it, omni-tool flashing every two seconds or less with top-priority transmissions. The truth was, there was plenty of rest for the wicked and no rest for the people who did their damn best to stand against them, and Shepard found himself wondering on more than one occasion how well or how much Alenko was sleeping.

He found himself answering those questions, too. Even if Alenko didn’t make it obvious, Shepard knew how to read someone. Hell, he’d been practicing on Garrus’s face for years, a zone where even the smallest twitch or purse of the lips had to tell Shepard everything.

It was all he had to go by. Alenko was quiet most of the ride back and that left the burden on Wrex and Garrus to keep up conversation.

By the end of it, Shepard was tempted to crash just to put them out of their misery.

‘Bet you’re not regretting signing on one bit, huh, T’Soni?’ Shepard asked. He knew every step Alenko took while circling around the Mako, heading back toward their shuttle, and T’soni shrugged.

‘Liara,’ she said.

Just like that, she was part of the operation.

It was the mix of people—the mix of _perspectives_ —that Shepard liked best, not being surrounded by good little soldiers echoing what their superiors told them once, reading off rules like they thought it applied to the real-life situations they were in. Garrus didn’t have a problem with that and Wrex had no idea what rules were; meanwhile, Liara was doing her own thing and Alenko was encouraging it.

He hadn’t ever seemed like the type. Shepard wasn’t about to apologize to him for misjudging his character—just like Alenko wasn’t about to apologize to Shepard for giving him a different kind of call than he’d promised.

It’d been closer to a suggestion, anyway. Nothing more, nothing less. Shepard took it for what it was and took his helmet off once they were inside, wiping the sweat off the back of his neck.

‘Hey,’ he said, when nobody congratulated him on his excellent driving. ‘At least we didn’t flip over, right?’

‘Don’t be so hard on yourself,’ Garrus replied. ‘I’m sure you’ll manage it next time.’

Shepard shrugged, still way too aware of everything Alenko was doing. It was more than keeping tabs. Shepard didn’t have a name for it.

‘Just trying to show you a fun time, Garrus,’ Shepard said.

‘Is this your usual behavior?’ Liara asked. Shepard didn’t envy her, being new in the crowd. ‘Or are you just showing off?’

‘No,’ Alenko said. ‘They’re…pretty much always like this.’

‘Newlyweds,’ Shepard said, with a shrug that no one was gonna swallow as being shy. ‘Or at least—we would be, if Garrus would ever accept a damn proposal.’

‘Do these fingers look made for rings?’ Garrus wiggled them for appraisal, not missing a beat. As far as reading Shepard’s mind went, there was no one better. That wasn’t something Shepard could hold against Alenko—and it definitely wasn’t a skill he wanted catching on.

Having one guy around who could do it was bad enough.

‘Human traditions don’t always fit alongside turian,’ Liara admitted. Bless her, but she thought they were serious.  ‘Commander Alenko, I thought, if you had a moment, that we might discuss the Prothean beacon you unearthed.’

Alenko got a look on his face Shepard recognized from the card tables, before he’d learned to hide it when he turned up junk cards. So there _were_ parts of the job that got to him.

Not that it mattered, but it went down in Shepard’s mental tally anyway.

It couldn’t hurt to remember a few private details about the galaxy’s first human Spectre. If anything, it’d make a good story for the human-turian grandkids.

‘Sure,’ Alenko said, ‘I mean—absolutely. We might as well use the debriefing room for some actual debriefing.’

Shepard opened his mouth, but not before Williams snorted again.

‘Embrace eternity,’ Liara said.

That was a tough line to top.

*

The ship was big enough to have its own med ward, complete with an official doctor presiding. It was a far cry from getting patched up by _Lieutenant_ Alenko in a cargo hold—which was all the motivation Shepard needed to be careful. Chakwas was all right for Alliance, but she didn’t have the Spectre-Commander’s gentle touch, and she’d made her opinion about having mercs on board pretty clear the first time Shepard checked in with her to get some shrapnel picked out of his left side.

Fortunately, she didn’t spend much time in the clinic proper, which meant it was still free territory for a guy looking to escape the shuttle bay.

There was only so much he could weather about the calibrations Garrus was doing on the Mako. As far as Shepard could tell, his best friend was trying his damnedest to take all the fun out of driving the thing. And even that wasn’t as bad as the times he and Wrex got into it.

It hadn’t come to blows yet, but Shepard wasn’t about to be there when it did.

Never get between a krogan and a hard place—those were words to live by. And there was no harder place than a turian’s pride.

So Shepard stuck to the med ward when Chakwas wasn’t around, appreciating her taste in fine whiskey from a distance, enjoying one of the clean beds for a nap every now and then, left arm folded behind his head, counting up all the chances he had to bow out of this mess for good.

It was bound to happen sooner or later—but probably sooner. As fun as it was running around the galaxy playing cleanup squad, not having to deal with the usual subterfuge because he was currently legit on a technicality, with Alliance funding to draw on while other people took care of the yellow tape… It wasn’t him. When he closed his eyes, he thought about Omega.

Then, he thought about Purgatory.

He thought about Alenko in the back room, the shadows on his shoulders, the way pale skin shifted under Shepard’s touch—his legs spread wide, elbow crooked, biting the back of his wrist. Like he thought it was important to be private in a place nobody cared about them. Shepard could still hear those little noises, muffled on skin, and sure, there were times when he thought about the way Alenko’s face looked with Shepard way down below and Kaidan way up high, just like a metaphor for who they were in life.

But it didn’t last. Nothing ever did—and neither would this assignment.

Self-appointed assignment, even. Alenko’d said himself that Shepard wasn’t bound to it and that was the only reason Shepard had said yes in the first place. The second orders came into it, anything that _looked_ like orders, Shepard was out.

He was one foot on the docking bay already.

Although it did come in handy to have some backing against the batarian bounty hunters who wanted him dead. They wouldn’t go up against a big Alliance ship with an IES stealth system, and that was the main reason Shepard had serious feelings for the SSV Normandy SR-1.

Shepard swung his legs up over the bed, boots still on. Chakwas wasn’t around; he could always blame the krogan for making a mess of the place. And sometimes a guy needed to remember how easy it was to do whatever he wanted when he didn’t have someone he had to impress. When he was all alone, he could figure impressing himself was impossible anyway—and why waste time taking his boots off about it?

Still, even on a big ship like this one, there were bound to be people with nowhere to be and nothing better to do than show up in the med ward when the good doctor was out.

‘…Didn’t think there’d be anyone else in here,’ Alenko said, halfway across the room.

Shepard lifted his head just high enough that the muscles in his neck strained. Again, Alenko had him at a tactical disadvantage, only this time Shepard hadn’t been the one to maneuver it, to throw him for a loop on purpose.

‘That’s funny,’ Shepard replied, even though it wasn’t. ‘I didn’t think the exact same thing.’

Alenko lingered to keep the distance between them; Shepard knew _that_ move by heart. But even with all that space, Shepard could still see the skin pinched around Alenko’s eyes, the tight line of his mouth.

Headaches. He got those often enough. Even though Alenko hadn’t brought them up exactly, not in so many words and obviously not to present company, Shepard wasn’t blind. He’d figured it out all by himself.

‘If you’re looking for the high-grade painkillers, I’m sure you already know where to find them,’ Shepard added, leaning back against the bed and staring up at the ceiling. ‘Don’t worry, Commander—I won’t tell anybody I saw you in here.’

 ‘That’s not it.’ Shepard could hear Alenko’s voice traveling, keeping a well-measured perimeter as he moved.

They spent too much time on explaining what things weren’t, not talking about what things were. Shepard settled in, making himself comfortable, pretending Alenko wasn’t there—feeling him in the room anyway, thinking too hard about everything, probably giving himself his own version of the same headache.

‘Chakwas keeps the booze in the second cabinet over sterilized needles,’ Shepard said. ‘Then again, I’m sure you know that already, too.’

‘I just came in here because it’s quiet.’ Alenko paused. ‘…Usually, anyway.’

‘Ouch,’ Shepard said. He didn’t quite lift a hand to his heart, settling for rubbing one of his middle ribs instead. He’d broken a few there on a job a while back and spending too much time off-world made them ache. ‘That your cute way of saying I don’t know how to keep my mouth shut?’

Alenko’s upper lip twitched, like he wanted to say something but the pain in his head was a reckoning he hadn’t been equipped to steer around. The lines in his face made sense now—or a different kind of sense than Shepard had first pinned on them.

‘Sit down,’ Shepard said. He realized he was drumming his heel against the solid frame of the sickbed, and did his best to rein it in. ‘Take a load off. I wouldn’t tell anyone I saw you doing _that,_ either.’

‘As far as gossip goes, it’s pretty weak,’ Alenko agreed. ‘…Compared to everything else we’ve got going on, I mean.’

There was hesitation in the first step he took but not the second, steadying himself just enough to all but collapse into Chakwas’ favorite chair. He’d lost the Spectre medal somewhere between the Citadel and Feros, but from the set of his shoulders, Shepard could tell he was still feeling its weight.

‘So,’ Shepard said. Alenko had his head tipped back, his eyes shut. It was easy to push off the bed, creep across the floor in silence. Shepard’s boots were old enough that they didn’t creak, way softer than the Alliance-grade crap he’d been issued first off. ‘Guess it’s a good thing you still have moments of being human, right? First human Spectre—it’d be no good if you went all turian on us or something. Bad for publicity.’

‘Yeah, you’d _hate_ that.’ Alenko’s fingers were laced together over his stomach, one eyelid twitching at the pain in his head. Shepard took position behind him, knuckles digging light against his temples.

To his credit, Alenko didn’t jump.

‘What, bad publicity?’ Shepard said. Just because he couldn’t dance didn’t mean he wasn’t light on his feet. ‘I’ve had my share. Of course, most of it hasn’t mentioned me by name.’

‘And you like that?’ Alenko asked.

‘Better than the alternative,’ Shepard replied.

Alenko didn’t say anything after that, his eyes shut but the muscles around them still pinched like he was squinting at something—maybe something only he could see. Shepard rubbed the pulse at his temple all the way down his jaw, which Alenko figured out how to unclench somewhere along the way. When Shepard got his hands to the base of Alenko’s neck, he finally leaned forward, right onto his elbows, bracing them on his thighs, just to give Shepard better access.

He wasn’t bowing his head, but he knew how to bend when the only other choice was to break.

Shepard brushed some of the hair out of the way, resisting the urge to trace the shape of Alenko’s hairline above the nape of his neck, and followed the tension wherever it took him. There was a lot of it. Shepard could feel it all the way up and down the side of his throat, chasing a few knots as they traveled from one spot to the next.

In the end, it wouldn’t mean much because it wasn’t going to last. The pain got at Alenko from the inside and whatever happened on the outside didn’t mean as much as medicine for healing—but Alenko needed his head clear, presumably so he could keep thinking too much, and Shepard knew without a weapon in his hands all he had were his fingers. He dug his thumbs into the base of Alenko’s skull, right at the curve of bone where the skin was thin and the hair was standing on end, and Alenko’s shoulders swelled with the sudden breath he took in reply, actually gasping before he bit down on it.

Shepard pulled his fingers through Alenko’s hair after that, messing it up, carding them over Alenko’s scalp. The last time he’d seen Alenko’s hair get messy had been a few months ago, just the two of them and no Spectre business to worry about—not that either one of them thought it’d last, but the touches had meant something at the time, something about taking what you wanted and giving what you got and feeling really damn good because of it.

Now, Shepard could see the flush on the skin above Alenko’s collar, creeping down under the hem. He swallowed. Alenko did the same.

‘It’s…the L2 implants,’ Alenko said, voice hoarse. It sounded, Shepard thought, like sex, but the topic was anything but. ‘The headaches.’

‘Could’ve fooled me.’ Shepard’s knuckles brushed the shell of Alenko’s ear, warm, thin skin over a quieter pulse. ‘It’s obvious you think too much.’

‘Somebody has to.’ Alenko wasn’t too relaxed, too blown away by the treatment, to keep from stiffening at the reminder, and Shepard upped his game, smoothing Alenko’s hair back from his temples. Because of the position, Alenko’s chin still tucked against his chest, there was no way to keep his hair from falling free again each time. Shepard didn’t care for lost causes, just the way it felt against his fingertips, something soft against something rough with callus. ‘It isn’t always this bad. Just sometimes.’

‘You could probably say that about anything,’ Shepard said.

‘Yeah, but…you just don’t have to,’ Alenko replied.

So he felt like he had to say something about this. Even with no one watching him, Alenko hidden in shadow he’d built with his body, Shepard shrugged. He gave his next rub some nail, an idle line scritched around the curve of Alenko’s ear, and Alenko finally looked up.

‘You didn’t have to do that,’ he said.

‘There’s a lot of stuff I don’t have to do,’ Shepard reminded him. ‘Anyway, it was either that or get Wrex to krogan headbutt you into getting some rest. I figured this’d be nicer.’

‘Thanks,’ Alenko said, with so much honesty in his voice it was like a goddamn field mine.

Shepard hadn’t been expecting it—or the look Alenko shot him, the positions reversed. Shepard leaned against the edge of the chair, going for casual, but it spun just enough that he almost lost his balance. Now that his hands didn’t have anything to do, anything immediate, it was obvious again how empty they were, especially without gloves on.

‘No problem, Commander,’ Shepard said.

Alenko winced.

‘You’re thinking a krogan charge doesn’t sound so bad right now,’ Shepard said, ‘but trust me, you’re wrong.’

‘Please tell me you aren’t speaking from experience,’ Alenko said.

‘You want that, or do you want the truth?’ Shepard rubbed his thumb over the scar that cut into his hairline. He still remembered the blast that’d caught him there, how proud he used to be of it. How he’d shaved his head just to show it off—and long after the impulse died, the hairstyle stuck. ‘Wrex doesn’t respect anyone he hasn’t knocked heads with.’

‘Me, in other words,’ Alenko said. Whatever good work Shepard had done with his hands, he could see it being _un_ done twice as fast, tensions growing back quicker than a hanar’s limbs regenerated.

So Shepard had heard, anyway. The ones on the Citadel weren’t exactly fighting fit, and the closest he’d come to seeing one in action was the latest Blasto movie.

All things considered, he liked the Spectre adventure he’d caught a piece of better.

Shepard bumped Alenko’s chair with his hip, sending it spinning in a gentle circle. They weren’t in the Mako, so he had to improvise when it came to catching Alenko off-balance.

‘If you want, I can arrange a duel in the shuttle bay,’ Shepard said. ‘I want a cut of the betting action, though, and if you could hold off on passing out until round two, that’d be great.’

Alenko cleared his throat. It wasn’t a laugh, but it cut closer to amused than Shepard had been expecting. ‘Honestly? I’m swimming in respect these days. I’m not saying that to brag, either, I just… Sometimes it’s refreshing to be around people who don’t jump to salute when I walk past them, you know?’

‘You mean people who don’t think of you as their commander, Commander?’ Shepard asked.

It was a low blow, but that was what you hired a merc for—to hit where the Alliance wouldn’t. No one knew that better than Shepard and there was no reason he shouldn’t remind Alenko of it, exactly like he was supposed to.

Alenko’s eyes were on Shepard now, wary but not unfriendly, the same shade as that whiskey Shepard had been talking up—though now he couldn’t remember why he’d bothered. They were a long way from anywhere that’d serve them decent drinks, and besides, Spectre-Commander Alenko had made it pretty clear from the get-go that fraternization of that caliber was off the table.

It didn’t matter. They were both doing their jobs.

‘Let me get you something to sock that migraine,’ Shepard said.

When all else failed, they knew better than anyone to go for the big guns.

*


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shepard and Kaidan share some body heat in an inexcusably long chapter.

Shepard showered that night, long after everyone else had turned in, although he was pretty sure Alenko wasn’t sleeping. He might’ve been talking with Liara again, about whatever had him looking like he was attending his own wake, and Shepard—who was just another gun for hire; everybody knew that—didn’t want to give himself clearance for that kind of intel. The more he knew, the more Alliance enemies could electroshock out of him someday.

It’d been known to happen. Shepard passed the glow of the lights behind the door to the med bay and didn’t stop in for a glass of Chakwas’s finest, even if he was sorely tempted.

It’d been that kind of day.

There was nobody else around, exactly what Shepard had been banking on by choosing his hours like he was on night duty. An early nap meant he had the run of the place to himself, a chance to clean some grit off his skin and, sure, turn off his thoughts for a while—the way dreaming didn’t let him, not all the way.

No matter what, he could always put his credits on something sticking around in the back of his head. Sleep was the most complicated way to pass your alone-time but a shower with hot water and a heavy spray…

Now that was more like it.

Shepard left his casuals outside and waited for the tiles to warm up, for steam to fill the room. He’d long since given up the idea that he’d have one of these places for himself, adjacent to a captain’s cabin—or down in a quiet place on earth, a Jacuzzi with temperature-controlled jets and everything. What he had was an allotment of water usage and the memory of Alenko’s short little gasp on his mind, the way he’d let Shepard touch him without questioning it, like he really trusted what Shepard’s hands could do.

He’d seen them in action, more kinds than just one. He had every reason to trust them—and every reason not to.

Shepard lathered them up, staring down at his palms. They were too clean to see what was underneath the suds.

It’d been a while since he’d been in this position; whatever he had going with Garrus was something he’d shut out the possibility for long ago, letting it bounce off him like rounds off a krogan’s hump. There was a lot to be said for studying those other races to pick up the best—not the worst—of their instincts. And Shepard’s entire life had been about learning how to cultivate a kinetic barrier, one that kept out more than just gunfire and never went down for anybody.

The last time Shepard had jerked off, he’d had fewer scars. And he wasn’t thinking about someone in particular then, either.

What happened in Purgatory stayed in Purgatory.

At least until they took out the trash.

Shepard let his forehead rest against the tile until the sweat on his skin and the heat from the water got it all warmed up, nothing cool left to cut through a tangle of thruster-fueled thoughts. Alenko couldn’t have been hotter if he’d tried—which was exactly how he kept his poker face. A happy goddamn accident, pulling a trump card out of the deck through sheer determination and good, old-fashioned luck. It drove Shepard crazy. Nothing should go down that way because it was too simple, too vulnerable, and it couldn’t last.

But there he was. And there they were. The smell of Alenko’s hair wasn’t anything special but Shepard thought about it anyway, a hand between his legs, Alenko knotted like scar tissue in his belly.

That’d get rid of the pressure build-up, if only for a while, without Shepard’s sense of personal shame—he had none of that—to keep him from standing in front of Alenko come morning. But it was nothing more than a stop-gap, an intermediary measure, not what Shepard wanted and more than he should’ve been ready to give.

There were certain things Alenko’d done with his hands _one time_ that Shepard did on instinct, bracing himself with an elbow on the tiles, stifling his breath with his mouth against his forearm. He didn’t slip, not even once.

When he was finished, he washed it all away.

He needed to get off this ship, go down to some of the usual places, flirt with the usual suspects—and feel like himself again, in the right setting, doing the wrong things. Alliance could collar a few bad dogs and groom them up nice and pretty, but eventually they had to know their pets would bite. They didn’t let ‘em sleep in the same room, for example, because they always knew the danger was waiting to bare its teeth.

That was why Alliance had its own quarters and why the mercs stuck to the shuttle bay. Even Garrus was halfway respectable, but that lone bad halfmeant he couldn’t ever sit in on a game with the heavy hitters. All because he cared about doing the right thing more than he cared about the rules—and because he had the brains to know the difference once in a while.

Shepard wasn’t interested in letting other people call the shots. At the end of the day, he only answered to one guy—and that was only Garrus _some_ of the time. The rest of the show was pure Shepard, working solo, and he was the one who decided whether he could live with himself, much less sleep with himself at night.

As long as the answer was yes _,_ then he was still flying straight.

Blowing off steam was gonna put a pin in his budding romance with Williams, but Shepard was willing to make a few sacrifices for his sanity. Some friendships weren’t meant to take off and that was okay. Trying to fight it only made everybody miserable, trussing ‘em up in suits that didn’t fit. Shepard liked the work better when it dealt with smiling faces and it was easier to get away with stuff in front of happy people—the miserable ones were always looking for someone else to take it out on.

Alenko didn’t smile much, but that was only because he thought he couldn’t run a ship and look like he was enjoying himself at the same time. Not Shepard’s business. Alenko’d figure it out or he wouldn’t and either way, it’d make a neat datapad entry.

Back in shuttle bay, dried off and ready for action, Shepard had it all sorted out. Next time they docked for fuel, he’d find a dirty little spaceport bar, drink as much batarian shard wine as he could handle without puking all over his favorite boots, and pass out on the cold, unforgiving floor next to the Mako.

He could trust Garrus to make sure he didn’t roll out of any open airlocks. Sometimes that was all you needed from a guy to consider him a _good friend_.

And after stint like that—Alliance duty would be off the table. He’d deal himself out, easy as that. 

Shepard’s skin was still burning from the shower and his own hands when he shared his plans in the engineering bay, where Garrus was taking in the ship’s drive core.

‘You aren’t going to find many places to cut loose at our next mission jump,’ Garrus said. Shepard could never tell whether Garrus was laughing at him or if that was just the way he always sounded. Mostly he liked the way it kept him guessing. He liked the hum, the same as the burning engines. ‘We’re heading to Noveria.’

‘And you need somebody to keep you warm out there, is that it?’ Shepard folded his arms over his chest and settled in against the wall, watching Garrus work. Doing all the staring for a change—that was more like it. And Garrus in one of his many elements was a sight to behold. It gave you faith in the galaxy that there were some people who still knew how to get shit done their way, and when a piece of equipment wasn’t up to their standards, they didn’t wait for someone else to tell them _fix it_. ‘I know how much you hate the cold.’

‘Like hell _I’m_ landing on a planet that temperature,’ Garrus replied.

‘All that thick skin and you can take all the heat in the world, but when it comes to a stiff breeze…’ Shepard shook his head. ‘You shake like a salarian. Garrus, I’m starting to think we’ve come to that point in our relationship where you’re no longer trying to impress me.’

The drive core sizzled and Garrus didn’t flinch. Whatever he was doing in there, he had the hands for it—and the eyes, and the head, and everything else. Even if he didn’t fit in most places—with a face like that, how could he?—Garrus still belonged somewhere. Whether it was behind a rifle or calibrating engine tech, there was still a place he could call home at the end of a long day.

Shepard figured if he had a place like that, it’d be with a pistol in his hand and somebody hollering curses at him outside of common. Maybe it’d be floating through space until he burned up from the pressure.

‘What was that, Shepard?’ Garrus asked. ‘Drive core should be working better now, by the way. In the interests of…showing off.’

‘If only everybody was a little more like you,’ Shepard said.

Garrus finally turned to face him, eyes sharp and bright. ‘But then I wouldn’t be so _special_ ,’ he replied.

Shepard allowed himself to chuckle at that, shrugging some of the tension in his shoulders out. He’d really been looking forward to that drink—and whatever mistakes he made after he had it, reminding himself of who he was by how much he could mess things up.

There wouldn’t be any room for mistakes on Noveria. There hadn’t been any room for mistakes in a while, with more than just his ass on the line.

Garrus was watching, pulling an old turian mind-trick—or thinking about how funny humans could be when they weren’t even trying. Shepard chuckled again, because it was either being a part of the joke or being edged out of it.

And it wasn’t like he was about to talk to Garrus regarding his _feelings_. He didn’t have them, not really, just an illusion of something his muscles weren’t used to yet. Routine. Rhythm. Waking up at the same time and in the same place every morning could be good for a body, or it could wreak havoc on an already closed system.

Somebody had to stick around and save their asses when they needed cover fire. At least until the next mission.

‘Noveria, huh?’ Shepard asked.

‘Noveria,’ Garrus confirmed. ‘You’ll have fun. You always do. Just look at you—you’re laughing already.’

If Shepard hadn’t liked him so much, he would’ve been in the same camp with all the people who hated Garrus Vakarian’s guts.

‘Do I get to ride the Mako again?’ Shepard asked, moving past Garrus on his way to the shuttle bay. ‘Hey—at least if I crash, the burning rubble’s bound to keep you warm.’

‘You always know exactly what to say,’ Garrus replied.

*

Only thirty minutes after touching down on Noveria, Shepard told himself he should’ve taken an escape pod and turned in his resignation _before_ letting himself get suckered into one last mission.

The whole place was a mess—not that everywhere else was better, just that Noveria was worse. And if it was any sign of what was going wrong with the galaxy, what Alenko was running through the Sol system trying to hold together, then the headaches were the only part of the deal that made any sense.

First of all, the whole place was experiencing some serious technical malfunctions, the likes of which Garrus’s usual calibrations—slowed down just a hair by all the cold, even in a temperature-controlled suit—couldn’t fix all at once.

Then there were the rachni to contend with.

‘Hey, Alenko,’ Shepard said, just to keep things lively. There was more to pulling through than knowing when to shoot and having near-perfect aim. ‘You ever feel like you just woke up in the middle of a nightmare?’

Kinetic barriers rippled around their cover, providing way more protection than a few old supply crates could muster. If Shepard didn’t watch himself, he was gonna get _used_ to working with biotics on the left and right of him. Between Alenko and Liara, he was seeing some serious firepower—the kind that had nothing to do with the heat their pistols were packing.

‘Since I met you?’ Alenko asked. Shepard sent a few choice shots into a rachni Liara had suspended midair. ‘A lot more than usual, actually. Thanks for reminding me.’

‘I hope that’s not your way of saying you hold me responsible,’ Shepard said. When the way was clear—when those damned _things_ had stopped shrieking—they crept forward in low combat formation, Liara taking point, then Alenko, then Shepard. It probably said something that they trusted him enough to let a merc bring up the rear, but between the bugs and the cold seeping in through his enviro-suit, Shepard was in no mood to feel appreciated. ‘I wouldn’t call myself a saint, but last I checked _I’m_ not the one who thought it’d be a good idea to send you on a Spectre wild goose chase.’

As they moved, he kept his eyes on the grates and doors.

Ambushed once by screaming, spitting insects was one time too many by Shepard’s count.

Even that would’ve been bad enough if they didn’t have the entire outpost working against them too. Not only were the labs infested, but the whole damn facility had been shut down sector by sector. If Garrus had been with them, Shepard might’ve fired off a comment or two about a _hard restart,_ but turning on a plant in stages was a lot less fun than it sounded. By the time they came to the third airlock, Shepard had a cold sweat beginning between the plates of his suit and his hands were starting to ache.

Just desserts for all the times he’d teased Garrus about being susceptible to the elements. He was gonna love this story, if they made it out in one piece.

‘You two clear the hostiles, and I’ll rewire the doors from out here,’ Liara said, already hooking east.

For a researcher, she’d picked up the hang of things fast enough. Shepard admired that.

He would’ve been happier with the biotic flank approach, but Liara ducked out of view and once she was gone it was only the two of them, Alenko and Shepard side by side—almost equal, if sweat got in your eye and you had to squint.

After that, there wasn’t much of a chance to catch their breath, much less enjoy the conversation. Alenko was brighter than the Normandy’s thrusters and Shepard kept his eyes on the hostiles instead of on his commander, the rachni infestation swarming the place, Shepard filling too many to count with ammo—until he used up his clip and he was switching out weapons.

It was just enough time to give one of the bugs an opening.

Alenko kept the rachni lunging Shepard from knocking him onto his back, though Shepard did go down onto his bad knee—and he thanked Alenko for the attention by blasting the head off the one that was headed his way. Two more were floating in the air, halfway between the ceiling and the floor, and if Alenko was tiring, he wasn’t showing it.

Yet.

Shepard didn’t wait for that to happen, killing them both with four perfect shots. They dropped and squelched and the room was silent, blessedly so, save for the sound of Shepard’s heavy breathing inside his helmet.

Then, a fifth rachni popped up out of nowhere, hissing and spitting on Shepard’s visor, and Alenko slammed into him from the side, knocking them both behind cover and through an open door. Shepard’s back hit the wall, his knee screaming pain, but he managed to fire one round too many into the rachni following them, the thing _long_ dead by the final gunshot.

Just as the smoke was beginning to clear, the lights went off.

Shepard could still see by the glow surrounding Alenko’s suit, shimmering over the rachni blood staining it. He refocused in time to watch the door in front of them roll shut and the power-down that meant whatever Liara was doing, whatever wire she’d clipped or access codes she’d punched in, she’d made the wrong choice.

It was the right opportunity for a joke about calling in the exterminators, except they were stuck in a decontamination chamber with a bunch of dead rachni outside, covered in giant bug guts. And Shepard’s knee was killing him. The cold fought with the adrenaline and neither one was winning, both taking over, Alenko pressed up against Shepard’s chest.

Shepard took off his helmet after he knew he was in control of his face, keeping it from twisting up.

‘Hey Liara,’ he said into his omni-tool. ‘So… Looks like we’re stuck in the decontamination chamber in here. Got any ideas as to why?’

There was a brief silence. Shepard could almost imagine Liara chuckling—not because she thought it was funny but because she understood what he did about jokes and being a part of them if you could, not being a part of them only if you couldn’t wrangle your way inside.

‘C’mon, Dr. T’Soni,’ Shepard added. ‘You’re some kind of a genius. You can get us out of here, no problem. That _is_ what you’re about to tell me, right?’

‘I could,’ Liara admitted, voice cutting in and out. ‘But it might release the neutron bombardment accidentally if I rush. I can’t do anything until I get this place stabilized—unless you _want_ me to release the neutron bombardment accidentally, in which case I’ll have you and the neutrons out momentarily.’

‘What do you say, Commander?’ Shepard asked. ‘You feeling in a betting mood today?’

Alenko pulled back. He hadn’t taken off his helmet yet, but Shepard saw him shake his head, _no_. Once was all it took.

‘No rush,’ Shepard told Liara, feeling a bead of sweat trickling down the side of his face. ‘Just…take your sweet time.’

‘Understood,’ Liara replied, before the transmission cut out.

It was just Shepard and Alenko in the chamber now. At least the emergency ventilation system hadn’t shut off; Shepard could hear the steady hum of a backup generator working somewhere else, loud enough that his collar felt tight, soft enough that he wasn’t banking on any of the temperature adjustment boards to work.

‘You were really something out there,’ Shepard said. The words filled up the empty space while he took stock of their surroundings, a couple of crates and some depowered equipment, which didn’t look like it’d been touched in a long while. Shepard pushed an empty med kit over onto one side with his pistol, looking for something—although he didn’t know what. All he did know was that he’d figure out how useful it was when he saw it.

 _If_ he saw it.

‘Hey, at least we don’t have any party guests,’ Shepard added, scraping a handful of rachni remains off his chestpiece. ‘Just the two of us. Cozy, isn’t it?’

‘Not exactly,’ Alenko said. Something in his tone made Shepard realize he was finally admitting he felt the cold, the same as anyone else stuck in this place. The decontamination chamber wasn’t insulated like the rest of the lab—and that hadn’t been so warm and inviting to start with, either.

At least, he was hoping it was more a comment on the cold than it was on the company.

‘Let me guess,’ Shepard said, leaning back against the double-reinforced glass wall. ‘Biotics don’t run hot.’

Alenko looked at him then—or at least Shepard thought he did. It was hard to catch nuances through the bulk of that helmet, the dark tint of the visor. Even though they’d managed to get the station environment systems running first, no one had actually tested the air by dismantling their suits. If anything, it was a practical concern. No reason to run around bareheaded when the next wrong turn could have you catching a faceful of acid.

Still, Shepard missed the eye contact. In his line of work, survival could depend on catching the subtle glances, the shift in a creased brow that meant your partner was about to double-cross you and join up with the Blue Suns.

Alenko wasn’t that kind of guy, but old instincts died hard.

Shepard shivered, the sudden jolt hidden under his armor.

‘It’s…not exactly a hard and fast rule.’ Alenko was fiddling with the settings on his pistol, probably checking to make sure the safety was on now that they were in a confined situation without confirmed hostiles. ‘Using them is pretty comparable to an intense workout, so it can get a little hot in the middle of a fight, I guess.’ Gloved fingers went to the seam in his armor, a bulletproof weave where his neck met his chestpiece. ‘Wears off quick once it’s over, though. And once those calories are burned up…’

‘Uh oh,’ Shepard said. ‘Am I gonna have to ask Liara how long we’ll be stuck in here? Because I’ve gotta tell you—as snacks go, I’m not going down easy. Too tough. Too much  muscle. You’d break a tooth on me, Alenko.’

‘I meant I get cold after,’ Alenko said. It was a trick to tell through the helmet-comm, but he almost sounded tickled.

At least he was up-front about it. Most guys—guys like Garrus, even—wouldn’t have brought it up. It was one thing to complain about the temperature and another to come right out and say it, no grumbling and no fronting, no bluster.

Shepard’s skin was chilly under the armor. The whole place stank.

But they were still alive, and they had Liara on the outside. It was only a matter of time—maybe a few minutes, maybe a few hours—before they were out of there and moving on to the next hot situation.

Blowing cold one second and hot the next… Shepard was used to that.

‘C’mere,’ he said, settling down on the ground with one of the crates at his back. Alenko hesitated—he knew how to take orders, but only from cranky looking admirals over staticky transmissions. ‘No worries, Commander. You can even leave your helmet on if you like.’

Alenko slid his pistol back into its holster. With both hands free, Shepard’s words were enough incentive for him to take the helmet off, tucking it under his arm. His face looked as pale as Shepard’s had felt the second he cracked his kneecap, with all the force of a damn rachni bodyslamming him to the floor, although the pain of that was already dulled, fading in and out, making itself known some moments and giving up the next.

It was the cold that did it—numbing the area, though Shepard would have a bruise the size of an entire volus come morning. It felt good to take the pressure off, working knee bent, bad leg stretched out in front of him, arm propped against the edge of the crate in case Alenko was planning on taking his offer anytime soon.

‘I get pretty cold myself, sometimes,’ Shepard added.

All a guy like Alenko needed was extra incentive, quicker to give someone on his team what they wanted than he was to look after himself. Shepard knew him backward and forward and from most angles, but when it came to using that information the way he wanted to, they might as well have been strangers.

Alenko settled in a few seconds later, armor bumping armor. _Cozy_ , Shepard thought again, but that was so far from the right word for it that he chuckled instead of saying it.

‘Yeah,’ Alenko agreed. ‘It’s funny. What was it you said before—about feeling like we’re in a nightmare?’

‘The rachni pretty much sealed the deal,’ Shepard said. ‘Aren’t giant acid-spitting bugs what _your_ nightmares look like, Alenko?’

‘No.’ Alenko flexed his fingers inside the gloves, helmet sitting at his side. His hip touched Shepard’s, but their bodies were so buried underneath polymers and dents and rachni remains that there was no way of really feeling who Alenko was beneath everything he was carrying. ‘Actually, that’s…not what my nightmares look like.’

Shepard closed his eyes. Alenko’d gone and made things serious, and now his arm—slung around Alenko’s shoulders—felt too damn heavy. His words felt too heavy, too, because it hadn’t been what he’d asked for. None of this was.

And not blaming himself for his own actions tasted like the dextro-amino based chocolates Garrus had him try one time.

‘Well, mine are,’ Shepard said, even though they weren’t. ‘This part’s the easy stuff. Catch a little shut-eye or something, while you have the chance. Make the most of the opportunity.’

‘It’s too cold for that.’ Alenko shifted in Shepard’s hold, not trying to fit but at least doing his best to get comfortable. ‘We have to stay awake. …Says so in all the rule books.’

‘Never been stuck on a freezing planet in a decontamination chamber before, huh, Commander?’ Shepard asked. When Alenko didn’t answer, he rolled out his shoulders and said, ‘Yeah. Me neither. Had my ass handed to me by a persistent batarian once, real mean son-of-a-bitch, but I guess that’s not the same.’

Alenko slipped his arm around Shepard’s waist. Shepard could feel that through the joints of his armor, the weight mostly, the way Alenko turned against him. ‘Not really the same at all,’ Alenko said.

Shepard opened his eyes—mostly just to prove to himself that he could, that it didn’t mean anything. His mouth was close to Alenko’s hair, which was sweaty, mussed from the helmet. The skin at his temple was as cold as he’d admitted to being, like saying how you really felt could be that simple.

‘I could tell you all about it,’ Shepard said. ‘Pass the time.’

Alenko chuckled and it came out like steam, little puffs of air that disappeared in the cold. Shepard had never been able to blow smoke rings in his life. Maybe he’d get some practice in before he froze to death in a Noverian research facility.

‘That’s your idea of a good time, huh?’ Alenko let himself lean closer. Either that or he was too tired to keep his head up.

‘Might make you feel better about our current lot in life,’ Shepard said. ‘I gotta tell you, there’s not much that can faze a guy after he gets his ribs kicked into his lungs. Figuratively speaking.’

‘Figuratively,’ Alenko agreed.

They both knew that wasn’t what Shepard meant, and it wasn’t because he hadn’t gone to fancy Alliance boarding school.

Shepard couldn’t feel the pulse he’d seen twitching at Alenko’s temple too many times to count. His skin was warm and damp, hairline tickling Shepard’s lips. They were doing okay so far. Warm was good, if they could keep it up.

‘Thought I was done for,’ Shepard continued. He stretched his leg to test the knee, only flinching a little when his heel slipped in rachni guts. ‘Only so much a guy can do when he’s breathing in more blood than air, you know? And I managed to take out _two_ of the bastard’s eyes—which on any sensible species would’ve taken him out of the equation, but no. Batarians always have to be difficult, like they think it’s a competition.’

‘This isn’t exactly a soothing anecdote, Shepard,’ Alenko said.

‘I’m alive, right?’ The arm Shepard had around Alenko’s shoulders was starting to feel like dead weight, so he tightened his grip, palm settling against his shoulder instead. ‘You know it has a happy ending.’

‘But—somehow—it’s not making me feel better about winding up stuck on an ice world in a decontamination chamber filled with a species that’s _supposed_ to be extinct.’ Alenko cracked his neck, hand going slack around his pistol.

Shepard raised his eyebrows. Alenko looked straight ahead.

‘They’re on their way towards being extinct again, if we’ve got anything to say about it,’ Shepard pointed out. ‘I mean, we made a dent. …I hope.’

Alenko’s laugh was more of a color than a sound, white breath puffing in the air before it evaporated. His pulse was easing up; Shepard could count the beats against his chin, stubble getting in between them but not much else to stand in the way. It was one small spot in the middle of everything, only the way Alenko was leaning into it made it feel like so much more.

‘Maybe the good doctor has something to help you cure that lack of optimism,’ Shepard said. ‘As for me? I’m not in the business of working miracles.’

‘Yeah. You just hire on to help with them once in a while,’ Alenko replied.

‘Miracles, huh?’ Shepard’s hand tightened around his shoulder. ‘Is that what you think this is?’

‘It’s gotta be something,’ Alenko said.

It was—something; that was exactly how Shepard would’ve described it, not that he had to. Not that he tried. When you only had one word to describe everything, _something_ usually did the trick. Shepard chewed it over, mouth on Alenko’s skin, Alenko not pulling away, although neither of them actually meant anything by it.

‘Now you see why I didn’t sign on in the first place,’ Shepard said finally, lips moving over Alenko’s hair. His breath made shapes on the air, too, nothing distinct, nothing that was meant to last, something only Shepard could see. ‘Didn’t figure you’d wear out so soon, though. Thought you had at least another couple years of doing things by the books in you.’

‘I do.’ Alenko spoke so quickly it even startled him, tensing up in Shepard’s hold. ‘…I do. But…that doesn’t mean I can’t see all the places it goes wrong, either.’

‘Doesn’t mean you shouldn’t talk about it,’ Shepard agreed. ‘To the right people, anyway.’

‘Are you ‘the right people,’ Shepard?’ Alenko asked.

Shepard didn’t know the answer to that.

The trick to getting around a tough question—especially one that was actually important—was giving up some other piece of information that sounded good on paper but wasn’t technically related. Everybody went home happy with that: one person giving out a truth of sorts, the other person getting an answer to at least one question. So what if it wasn’t the one they’d asked? It was better than silence, anyway.

‘Almost enlisted once, you know,’ Shepard said. ‘Day of—had my fudged papers and everything, and you know me; I don’t back down from something once I’ve got my sights set on it—an old friend came knocking. Had some trouble off-world and he needed my help out of a sticky situation. Turned out there was a whole damn transport of the disenfranchised that needed rescuing from a batarian slaving outfit, not just one guy’s trouble with a Red Sand shipment he’d lost track of, and by the time I had them tucked away safe and sound, I’d missed the sign-ups by _that much_.’

It wasn’t the whole truth. It didn’t bring into light the other almosts that’d popped up along the way and everything that’d come between him and the idea itself, not just the reality. Eventually, a guy had to figure the missed opportunities were a sign of some sort, even if he didn’t believe in signs in the first place.

‘You make it sound so easy,’ Alenko said.

‘Do I?’ Shepard asked. ‘I guess that means you aren’t listening hard enough.’

Alenko sighed, somewhere between a huff and a laugh, although Shepard didn’t have to look at his face to see he wasn’t smiling. He wanted to get in closer, maybe kiss the pulse and make it kick up a notch, but sexy as surviving rachni waves was, the rachni guts they were left with after weren’t.

And there was still the little matter of Alenko not being down for it. He was gonna call and then he didn’t, and that was a sign too.

Even if Shepard didn’t believe in signs in the first place. 

‘You’re human, that’s all,’ Shepard added. ‘First human Spectre, so I’ve been told.’

‘So they won’t stop telling you,’ Alenko said.

Shepard chuckled; he was the only one who would. ‘Yeah. _Exactly_. It’s a vital part of the whole package. At least your version of frustration doesn’t come with four eyes and bad aim.’

‘I’m giving it some time,’ Alenko said. ‘The way this mission’s going, I wouldn’t count out anything just yet.’

‘That’s the spirit, Kaidan,’ Shepard said.

It wasn’t a deliberate choice as much as it’d just slipped out. You kill enough giant bugs in tight quarters with a guy and that put you on a first name basis. Liara wasn’t the doctor anymore—and Williams had never been anything but Williams. Spectre-Commander seemed like a waste of breath and Shepard needed everything he could get to keep warm.

‘Hey,’ Alenko said. When he shifted, it knocked their armored hips together. Whatever Liara was doing, Shepard figured she could stop taking her time any second now. It wasn’t that he wasn’t enjoying himself, but there was only so much distance he could cover between them mid-mission. Environmental hazards always put a damper on the romance—a romance Alenko had already put the kibosh on through the act of _not_ acting. No big deal. That sort of disappointment happened every day. ‘You know… Sometimes, when something gets in the way, it just means you have to try again. It’s not some—sign, or anything. I doubt the batarians are that coordinated.’

‘So you think I gave up too easy?’ Shepard asked.

It’d been a long time since he’d given the Alliance any real thought, not interested in picking at the scab. It wasn’t easy to go back now and find the scar, numb to the touch and long since healed over. At least it didn’t matter, not the way it used to.

Not as much as the sweat drying on the back of Alenko’s neck, the way his skin disappeared beneath armor and the uniform he wore under that. There were more layers than just what was visible, the Alliance code of conduct Alenko wrapped around himself like a kinetic barrier, but none of that was Shepard’s business.

Outside, the wind howled and Shepard could hear a distant turbine beginning to whir.

‘Shepard,’ Alenko said. He shifted away, but only so their eyes could meet. They breathed together in the cold, thin space between their mouths.

‘Shepard,’ Liara said over his omni-tool. ‘Shepard, can you hear me? I think I’ve got the doors working.’

‘She thinks she’s got the doors working.’ Shepard’s lips moved over Alenko’s, not making it all the way across the distance. It was only air, breath Shepard could see and taste, not actual skin that touched him.

Of course, it wasn’t a sign. Alenko’d said as much and he could be convincing when he wanted to—keeping up the act for most people, dropping it when they were alone together, the right balance of maintaining his cool and offering actual sincerity. Just like how he was in a card game, come to think of it.

There were no batarians outside offering heavy fire. The usual distractions didn’t apply—if only because it wasn’t the usual tight situation.

‘Let’s see if she’s right about that,’ Shepard said, levering himself up with one elbow on the crate. It wasn’t even hard; his knee was a little stiff, but that was the long and short of it. He fixed his limp two steps in, heading to the door and plugging in the numbers.

It slid open. It wasn’t any warmer outside than it was in the decontamination chamber, but nothing had exploded and no rachni jumped out to greet them like a welcoming committee. ‘Would you look at that,’ Shepard said.

But Alenko had already put his helmet back on, rising to his feet and standing there in the middle of the carnage like the perfect recruitment package. What they could all aspire to being, if they only read the right books, learning the rules and saluting whenever they were told to.

It was so much more than that—and they both knew it. But Liara was waiting for them, and Shepard had to keep moving, or else the old pain was gonna slow him down for good.

*


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kaidan comes prepared.

Shepard could still feel the cold when they were back on the Normandy, though he didn’t mind seeing the last of Noveria and saying goodbye to _that_ interlude once and for all.

‘Good thing you didn’t come down with us, Garrus,’ he said, staving off the limp until he was alone. ‘I don’t think you could’ve handled it.’

‘It must have been fun, if you’re in such a charitable mood,’ Garrus replied. Shepard could feel him watching as he headed off somewhere private—all the more reason to keep his head held high, helmet under one arm, showing off just a little for the peanut gallery. The more momentum he built, the farther it’d take him. And so what if it was extra work at the outset? The results were always worth the sweat.

‘You should get that knee looked at, Shepard,’ Alenko said, voice distorted behind his mouthpiece.

And just like that, he was gone—heading for the med ward, always leading the way by setting such a good example.

He was right about the knee, but Shepard had a bottle of Chakwas’s whiskey in the shuttle bay that practically had his name on it, a time-honored medicine that hadn’t failed him yet. He cleaned off his armor and got out of it, shedding the final remnants of their time on Noveria, finally able to breathe without a mouthful of guts and gunfire. He settled into his bunk with the bottle, hand on his thigh above his bad knee, tipping his head back against the wall.

This was the last one. He’d said it before and he’d meant it at the time. The longer he stuck around, the more he’d be making excuses—the more he’d be fending off interruptions and disappointment and the rest. If anyone could look after this group besides him, it was Garrus.

Garrus  would know what to do, how to make Alenko snap out of it when he needed to, that sort of thing.

Shepard admitted he’d miss working with Liara, of course. She had a knack for when and how to open the right door for somebody, and Shepard was lucky that she’d done it in time—before anything else happened.

Spilling rachni guts was one thing. Spilling your own…

Shepard took a pull of the whiskey. It was good stuff, and he’d make a point of restocking it for Chakwas after there were a few relay jumps between them.

This wasn’t his favorite position, or his favorite place on the ship. It had its moments, peace and quiet being number one on his mind, even when he knew it was only an illusion.

He didn’t realize he’d closed his eyes until he heard the door slide open. That happened sometimes, mostly when he’d been on his feet too long, pushing his body past its natural limits. It’d wait for its chance to push back, but it always landed the final blow.

‘Wrex,’ Shepard said. He tightened his hold on the bottle-neck, shifted his shoulders against the hard pillow underneath him. ‘Give a guy some room to unwind once in a while. I’ll tell you all about the rachni once we’re in deep space, all right? Wish you’d been down there to crack some bug skulls together, though.’

Someone cleared his throat. It definitely wasn’t a krogan. They didn’t waste time making sounds that weren’t threats.

Shepard opened his eyes.

Spectre-Commander Alenko looked smaller without his armor, even standing, arms crossed, in a room that felt crowded with only the two of them in it. He’d cleaned up since Noveria, skin scrubbed pink everywhere Shepard could see—but he hadn’t shaved yet, and the shadows in his cheeks and along his throat made him look bone-tired. About as tired as Shepard felt, in fact.

‘Hey,’ Shepard said. He hadn’t downed enough stolen whiskey to get mouthy, but Garrus always did say he had a natural flair for insubordination, evidenced by how little he was inclined to get to his feet and throw Alenko a salute.

‘Hey yourself,’ Alenko replied. He rubbed his thumb against the crook of his elbow, mouth twisting halfway under all that stubble. ‘…You planning on coming to the med bay anytime soon, or do I have to drag you there myself?’

Shepard didn’t sit up, not in the obvious way. But he was paying attention now, like a varren catching the scent of meat on the air.

Even if Alenko had proved a while back he wasn’t anybody’s idea of prey.

‘I wasn’t aware that was an order.’ Shepard adjusted his grip on the bottle, fingers sliding down the neck to where it swelled wide. ‘Or that I was one of the guys expected to follow orders in the first place. Kinda thought that was why you hired me—diversity in the ranks and all.’

Alenko glanced over his shoulder, like he was looking around to take all that diversity in. There was no one else there, but they made it hard to forget them even when they weren’t in the room. A krogan, a turian and an asari all walked onto a ship and you felt them, in every corner of every bay, in every joke you laughed at and every one you didn’t.

Considering krogan senses of humor, it’d be worse if you _did_ forget they were there, although Shepard was pretty sure this conversation wasn’t about anyone else but the two of them.

He made himself comfortable, adjusting the pillow under the small of his back, watching Alenko from across the way. Alenko made no move to sit down and Shepard certainly wasn’t making any move to get up. There was something between them thicker and stronger than a kinetic barrier, making every test shot rappel off the surface, words pinging like gunfire off a shield.

Maybe that was why Shepard was being so stubborn about the whole thing. He liked it fine when the odds were against him, a challenge every now and then to make him feel like he was betting more than a few old credit chits and an even older reputation. But he liked it better when the game he was playing was actually fun, because hell, who didn’t?

Mean, crazy batarians, that was who.

‘It wasn’t an order,’ Alenko said. ‘It _was_ a suggestion. But it was a good one. I saw you favoring that leg back on Noveria. We’ve got the resources, Shepard. Chakwas knows what she’s doing.’

‘And so do I,’ Shepard replied. ‘You’re just going to have to trust me on that one.’

‘I trust you.’ Alenko licked his lower lip and Shepard watched it so close they could’ve been standing right in front of each other for all he knew every last detail. Alenko’d done the same thing when he was leaning over Shepard’s body in the night and they _had_ been close, close enough for Shepard to feel the tip of Alenko’s tongue on his skin. ‘I do, Shepard.’

Shepard wasn’t surprised to find the feeling was mutual.

‘Want a drink?’ he asked.

It was an invitation and Alenko knew it.

He took it, though Shepard _was_ surprised to find he hadn’t been expecting him to.

Alenko crossed the distance and it seemed he moved too fast and too slow at the same time. When he leaned over Shepard’s body Shepard moved back, making room for him, and Alenko touched his face—the scar that wasn’t there on his lip and the scar that was there on his forehead, curving over his scalp. Alenko’s hands were steady, cool, not as cold as they were on Noveria but even Shepard was having trouble getting warm again. The whiskey would help, just not as much as sharing some private, personal heat, something that’d been burning without adding fuel to it for a long time.

The cot creaked, Alenko’s knee hitting the edge.

‘It’d be real funny if somebody walked in right now,’ Shepard said. ‘Considering all that stuff you were saying about giving things a second chance, what’s a sign and what isn’t.’

Alenko didn’t close his eyes, didn’t even blink. Shepard met his gaze with his own, but it wasn’t something he’d’ve called easy.

‘Did you get the joke?’ Shepard asked. ‘’Cause what I was saying was actually—’

Alenko kissed him, for his own benefit no doubt, sweet and deep and slow. It felt good, so much better than talking, no matter how relaxed Shepard’s voice sounded, no matter how much of a triumph that really was.

Shepard held onto the bottle with one hand, the damp back of Alenko’s neck with the other. He pulled him close and Alenko followed; once again, Shepard was surprised that it happened that easily when the one constant he’d had was how it wouldn’t be happening, not ever again.

Alenko was breathing fast and heavy when he pulled back, forehead still resting against Shepard’s, biting his lower lip.

‘And here I thought you weren’t interested,’ Shepard said. His voice didn’t sound relaxed anymore, low and rough as Alenko’s had been back in the decontamination chamber. Rusty. Sore, even. ‘I mean—you _did_ make that one pretty clear.’

‘Did I?’ Alenko asked.

Shepard knew what it was gonna sound like before the words even left his mouth. Usually that was decent motivation not to say them at all—he hated being predictable, even when he was the only one who knew it. But he figured he’d let Alenko suffer enough, or that maybe he wasn’t the only one suffering.

Whatever the reason, Shepard had never had much luck keeping his mouth shut.

‘Way I remember it is, you were gonna flag me down next time you got some shore leave.’ Shepard wedged the bottle in between his bed and the wall with a clunk. It freed his hands for more important business, like settling at the small of Alenko’s back, just above the rise of his ass. It was easier to roll Alenko over him like that, throwing off his balance by shifting their weight. ‘Then you didn’t. Wasn’t that hard to put the pieces together. I’m no salarian puzzle-master or asari mind-reader, but I can take a hint.’

Alenko made that sound that was gonna drive Shepard nuts one of these days, incredulous and soft, caught halfway between a laugh and open disapproval. It was so unique, so plain _Kaidan_ without any of the Alliance trappings he’d got caught up in, that it made Shepard’s pulse beat a little faster just hearing it.

‘Is that what you—’ Alenko stopped himself. Shepard pretended he couldn’t see the flicker of biotic blue deep in his eyes. It wasn’t evasion tactics. Not yet, anyway. ‘Things got a little busy, Shepard.’

‘Life’s always busy on a good ship,’ Shepard replied. He hadn’t meant to have this conversation, but apparently it was what he was gonna get. Maybe it was even what he deserved for all that time he’d spent telling himself it didn’t matter, that they didn’t have to have it. ‘I figured I was more of an asset on that front—not a distraction.’

‘Well now you’re both,’ Alenko said. ‘I don’t know—you’ve always been both, maybe.’

‘Maybe,’ Shepard repeated.

Alenko bowed his head even deeper; Shepard didn’t know how low he could go without closing that final distance but the wait was torture. And he knew torture. ‘Maybe.’ The word ghosted over Shepard’s lips, warm breath on warm air instead of a puff of white in the sub-zero chill.

Shepard didn’t feel cold anymore, but it was more on the promise of how hot things could get than how hot they were already.

‘I don’t do maybes,’ Shepard said.

Alenko rolled his hips over Shepard’s lap. ‘Me neither,’ he said, like he was in the habit of doing _that_ all the time.

Shepard arched up into him and Alenko met him halfway, finally letting his eyes fall shut. He was the one who kissed Shepard instead of the other way around—one more thing for Shepard to be surprised and impressed by, one more moment for him to remember going down backwards, not at all the way it should be. It was one more reason to think _damn it_ and _finally_ , letting his lips open up under Alenko’s mouth, the part of his brain that supplied a good comeback shutting off while the part of his brain that was controlled directly by his dick took over. 

 _Maybe_. It was what everything was riding on, Alenko riding on Shepard, Shepard riding on want. Alenko braced his hands on either side of Shepard’s neck, thumbs on his pulse, and Shepard threw him some tongue, tasting the slide of his teeth, the swell of his bottom lip, wanting to bite him and have him and keep him, only Alenko did that first, too, tightening the press of his thighs around Shepard’s hips.

‘You stopped calling me Kaidan,’ Alenko said, practically into Shepard’s mouth.

‘You didn’t call _me_ at all,’ Shepard replied.

There was something about it that was almost a joke, how they were acting like kids when they were supposed to be soldiers. One of them was, anyway, even with the questions, even with the doubts. It was because he had them that Alenko was the real deal, not just playing dress-up.

‘Things got a little busy,’ Alenko repeated. ‘There was a lot going on. I didn’t want to bring you into anything you weren’t… You were the one who made it clear, how you felt about Alliance business, being a part of it.’ Shepard arched his body again, always trying for up, and with everything between them, there was still the friction he was looking for, his dick rubbing Alenko’s dick. Both of them were as hard as they were being stubborn. ‘No—that’s not what I’m trying to say. I’m not blaming anyone… Not blaming anyone but myself.’

‘Yeah? I guess that makes two of us.’ Shepard didn’t regret saying it immediately; it had to creep in over the fire in his belly and burn him somewhere else, in his chest instead of his gut, while the whiskey burned the back of his brain and Alenko’s body burned him everywhere else. ‘…Not that I was waiting around for you to call or anything. Just thought it might be nice.’

‘It would’ve been.’ Alenko cleared his throat, moving closer, hands at the nape of Shepard’s neck. His fingers pushed beneath Shepard’s collar and Shepard liked it that way, by inches—like it didn’t matter how much they’d seen of each other; like they were looking to discover everything for the first time all over again. Shepard remembered it. He also knew it was going to be different this go-round and he wanted that: the change, the pleasure, everything. Shit. ‘It still can be. That’s what I’m trying to say—’

‘Can’t call the first human Spectre by his first name, though,’ Shepard said. He kissed the side of Alenko’s jaw down to his throat, finding the sweet spot that made him moan and scraping his teeth over it. Two could play at whatever they were playing at. Hell, they _needed_ two or else there wasn’t even a game. ‘Wouldn’t be right. Williams’d kick my ass, for one thing.’

He punctuated that by squeezing Alenko’s beneath his hands. Alenko said his name, _Shepard_ , and that was the thing—both of them being on a last-name basis, enjoying the way it tasted, the way it burned as it went down.

Shepard held onto the backs of Alenko’s thighs. He could’ve said something about how damn right it felt, how hot Alenko was, how he’d been driving Shepard crazy for weeks now without knowing—because those things came naturally to him or not at all, just like poker did. But he let it slide while Alenko slid against him, face buried in Alenko’s throat.

‘You’re not Alliance,’ Alenko said. Like either of them needed him to point _that_ out. ‘So technically…you can call me whatever you want.’

Shepard laughed, hiding it against Alenko’s skin as he scraped his teeth over his neck. He tasted clean with a trace of harsh soaps, no hint of the lingering cold-sweat Shepard had seen during their little detour through the decontamination chamber.

He’d been glad then that Liara interrupted them. He should’ve known it was only staving off the inevitable, and if he _hadn’t_ known, then Garrus should’ve told him.

That was what friends were for, wasn’t it? To stop you before you made an ass of yourself, or at least stop you from repeating past mistakes.

Shepard wasn’t ready to consign Alenko to that category just yet—but maybe that was part of the problem.

‘You sure you wanna open that door?’ Shepard widened his legs to pull Alenko up between them, knees rising on either side of his waist. ‘I can think of a whole _lot_ of things I might like to call you. Garrus always says I’ve got a great imagination.’

‘That sounds like something a mother would say,’ Alenko said. Something about the statement made his expression settle, like he realized how it sounded—and what it meant, too, that all the questions he’d asked at the beginning about Garrus weren’t exactly necessary.

It even helped Shepard figure a few things out.

‘I wouldn’t know.’ Shepard squeezed Kaidan’s thighs before giving his ass a slap. With his legs already in position it was easy to take Kaidan down, rolling him under with a finesse he’d’ve been proud of in a wrestling match.

Kaidan already looked winded, so it wasn’t much of a victory. He also looked like he was still thinking about the mother thing, how he shouldn’t have brought up Shepard’s lonely orphan past when he was looking to get some. The flush on his cheeks was part embarrassment now; Shepard had to put a hand down his pants just to get him to focus on why he really needed to blush.

If it didn’t bother Shepard, he sure as hell wasn’t about to let anyone else dwell on it for too long. These things happened all over the systems. For some reason, the people who didn’t live that life were always the ones it mattered to most.

‘Tell me you locked the door,’ Shepard said, over Kaidan’s groan of surprise— _surprise_ , like he’d forgotten he even had a dick, much less that people were gonna want to reach out and touch it.

That was what the Alliance did to a good man. It was enough to give Shepard chills under the warmth spreading over his skin.

‘Yeah,’ Kaidan said. Then, he looked embarrassed by it. Planning ahead was for one part of his life and not another, apparently; not getting the call made sense, though if he’d wanted, Kaidan _could’ve_ hauled him in for some questioning earlier on.

Missed opportunities. The galaxy was full of those, too, all the dark matter that surrounded the bright stars. Shepard rubbed Kaidan’s dick beneath his palm, coaxing another groan out of him, another _yeah_ , deep and desperate. He sounded like himself but mostly this other version, somebody Shepard knew he could be, somebody Shepard wanted to see in his bed more often. He wanted to see this guy in his own bed, maybe up against a wall sometime, in the debriefing room when they were alone together, in the shower—anywhere he could.

Just…maybe not a decontamination chamber on Noveria.

 _Maybe_ , Shepard reminded himself, rolling Kaidan’s balls against his palm. They were heavy; his dick was real hard. His eyes were shut and his lips were parted and Shepard figured he hadn’t really had it this good since the last time they were together.

Neither had Shepard, but that was beside the point.

‘Damn,’ Shepard said. ‘You’ve been thinking about this, haven’t you?’

Kaidan didn’t say _yeah_ a third time but the way his lips pursed up, the way he swallowed, Adam’s apple bobbing under fresh-shaved skin, told Shepard everything he needed—wanted—to know.

It wasn’t all the time those two things came hand in hand. Shepard ran his thumb over the head of Kaidan’s dick and it pulled away sticky, enough to make _him_ say ‘Yeah,’ bending low to kiss that bare throat again.

He didn’t know why. He liked the way it looked, that was all, and he was looking to feel it, like Kaidan was looking to feel him.

‘Me too,’ Shepard said, riding high on the way it was suddenly so damn mutual. It was something they were in together instead of something he needed armor for—so he could think about it and still enjoy it for what it was, not letting himself hate all the things it wasn’t. Not long enough, for one thing. Only one time hadn’t cut it. Without seeing Kaidan’s face or Kaidan seeing his, the admission came out easy, if a little rough—but that was how Kaidan seemed to like it.

That was how Shepard liked it, too.

‘Thinking about it a lot, actually,’ Shepard added, feeling Kaidan tense up. He relaxed after that, skin jumping one second, body practically melting the next, all the right reactions to really get Shepard going. He gave Kaidan a few more long strokes—the same motion he’d gone in for when he was showering before Noveria—and Kaidan arched right in the small of his back, a perfect curve off the mattress.

‘Shepard,’ he said.

‘Kaidan,’ Shepard replied.

He’d been saving it for the right moment, something Kaidan wouldn’t be able to forget. He could feel the vibration with his lips when Kaidan moaned again, even deeper, while he rubbed his knuckles against the thin skin between Kaidan’s balls and his ass.

Why else had Kaidan hired him on? Because somebody had to keep his cool in all kinds of crazy situations. There were rule books about this sort of thing, sure, and some of them even had pictures, _moving_ ones. Shepard had checked a couple out but knowing how to keep going while the rest of you was so full of pure damn want wasn’t easy.

He hadn’t forgotten how to do it. He was close, starting to sweat, feeling it between his shoulders and down his chest, but he was still in control. When he told himself that, he almost believed it.

Then, Kaidan moaned again. Shepard cursed, _shit, Kaidan_ , so far beyond Alliance protocol he thought he could hear Kaidan laugh. He got his hands out of Kaidan’s fatigues and pulled them down, turning him over, Kaidan moving with all the ease he had on the field.

A good commander knew the importance of taking orders. A good commander didn’t forget what it was like serving under someone else, listening to the right advice, reading the room.

Probably. Shepard didn’t know anything about the position himself; he knew more about _this_ position, kneeling between Kaidan’s legs with Kaidan’s ass in the air.

‘Shit, Kaidan,’ Shepard said again. 

The flush in Kaidan’s skin reached all the way to the backs of his thighs, something Shepard had wondered about but never seen until now. He could add it to the growing collection of intimate details he’d learned about the Spectre-Commander, things he shouldn’t have remembered but did anyhow. Knowing where Kaidan’s skin freckled—the dimples above his ass or the moles on his back—wasn’t gonna help Shepard when he needed to make room in his brain for the _real_ stuff, like the layout of a Blue Suns prison ship.

One day, all this messing around off the clock was gonna reach around and bite him in the ass like a pet varren.

But for now, he wasn’t about to turn away something good when he had it in his hands. He’d learned that one the hard way after years of doing the opposite, holding on to nothing at all. The aborted attempt to join the Alliance was just one in a long string of could’ve-beens, stuff to bore Garrus with when they were blitzed after a job or on the verge of accepting a bad one.

Since Shepard had gone and left Earth behind a while back, it was probably time to leave behind the mistakes he’d made there too.

Shepard ran his hands over Kaidan’s ass again just to prove he could, leaning in to bite the rich curve of thick muscle there—and _that_ was just because he wanted to do it. Kaidan tensed but in the good way, anticipating something instead of bracing himself against it. Shepard could see the flex of tendons and sinew shifting under skin, sweat beading between his shoulder-blades again, almost as good as a biotic workout.

The flickering strip lights on the Normandy left a lot less to the imagination than the back room of a club, even a nice place like Purgatory. Kaidan didn’t exactly strike him as a lights-on kind of guy, but here they were and he hadn’t said stop. 

To Shepard, that was as good as flashing him the green for take-off.

They were short on supplies, but Kaidan muttered something about his pockets that sent Shepard scrambling after the fatigues he’d tossed aside. It was hard to know whether to be in awe of his preparation skills, or mad at himself that Kaidan had been the one to figure out they were gonna be doing this first.

In the end he settled for the awe. Tough to be mad from this position, getting the view Shepard got.

To his credit, Alenko didn’t try to look back over his shoulder. He steadied himself with his elbows on the mattress and held the line, just like he was doing every other day of his life.

But that wasn’t how Shepard wanted this to go down. It was his time to show what he was made of, how strong his arms were, that he _could_ hold on to something other than skills and pride.

‘You came ready for this,’ Shepard said. Anybody else might’ve been more appreciative with the tone, saying thank you for the condoms and the lube, but not Shepard.

And Kaidan had to know it.

‘You said it yourself.’ Kaidan’s voice came from a quiet place, high and low at the same time. ‘I’ve been thinking about this, so…’

It was fine. He didn’t need to say any more about that. Shepard got one of the condoms out and on and some of the lube on his hand; from there it went onto his dick and he even made some noise about it to let Kaidan imagine what he was doing back there, cock bobbing below his navel as he went. Kaidan’s shoulders shivered but they didn’t outright shudder. He didn’t lose his balance, Shepard resting his free hand on Kaidan’s hip and rubbing it with his thumb.

Just a few more strokes. Shepard was always aware of the time, how little they had, how much he wanted. Something was always ticking down to launch but it was the buildup, he’d thought, the wait and anticipation, that was supposed to be the best part.

When he leaned forward, dick rubbing against the curve of Kaidan’s ass, they both moaned—together—and it wasn’t for show. Shepard touched Kaidan’s belly, reaching around to the front to hold on again, looking for something different this time. He settled his weight and Kaidan was ready to hold him up—something they shared, something Shepard couldn’t think about.

Thinking time was over anyway.

His dick rested between Kaidan’s ass cheeks, muscles tightening while Shepard thrust against them. More friction. More not-quite but so-close, _almost_. But it wasn’t about what could’ve been, either; Shepard kissed Kaidan’s shoulder, stroking his dick with sticky fingers, neither of them falling into the same rhythm.

That was what made it feel so damn great—and Shepard wasn’t even inside him yet. _Maybe_ , he thought again; he had to quit it with that, comparing being with Kaidan to the first time he got off-world, comparing everything inside of him to starlight and thruster fuel and all the rest. It was the right way to describe it but it should’ve been left as it was, in the moment, what they had, Kaidan pushing back against Shepard’s dick and pushing forward into Shepard’s hand.

And Shepard…

Shepard closed his eyes, cheek resting on Kaidan’s shoulder, where everything else was resting with him. The only difference was the arm he had wrapped around Kaidan’s waist, the fingers he had wrapped around Kaidan’s dick, that he was looking after Kaidan just as hard as Kaidan was looking after everyone. Shepard cupped his balls again—Kaidan liked that—and gave them a little squeeze. Kaidan said his name again and Shepard knew he’d never heard it sound like that, not from anyone, not for any reason.

 _Shepard_. Like it meant something.

It did; there was no question about that. He didn’t need some Alliance CO to tell him so, slap a medal on it and make it official. He didn’t even need Kaidan on his hands and knees in his bed to _whisper_ it and make it real.

It was nice realizing somebody else got it, though.

Shepard kissed Kaidan’s shoulder, rewarding him for the gift he hadn’t asked for by really giving it to him, the special treatment, everything he liked best. It was the right angle, the right perspective for it. He pushed his thumb into the slit at the head of Kaidan’s dick and Kaidan cursed this time, _shit, Shepard_ , which made Shepard grin.

‘Now you’re sounding like a real soldier,’ Shepard said.

Kaidan came, right into his hand. His heart was beating so hard in his chest, against his ribs, that Shepard could almost count how many times it thudded against his cheek, the corner of his mouth, his jaw and chin.

He wasn’t about to keep track of the numbers—and that was only because the space between _almost_ and _actually_ doing a thing could blow the whole deal, easy. He’d cross that bridge when he came to it, so to speak. With any luck it wouldn’t be one of the ones that caught fire or fell to pieces after he’d brought himself over it to the other side.

Shit was always breaking down around him. If Shepard didn’t watch himself, he was gonna start taking it personal.

For now, there were other things to take personal: the clutch of fire under his skin like a thruster flaring on maximum output, for example. Kaidan’s skin was pink where Shepard’s hands had been. He had the kind of complexion that showed everything off, made bruises look worse than they were and made secrets impossible to keep.

Shepard ran his fingers along the softening length of Kaidan’s erection, swirling loose and thoughtful around the head where he knew everything would be feeling a touch oversensitive.

If his hands were shaking, neither of them had anything to say about it. Shepard figured that was another highlight of Kaidan’s character: that he was willing to keep an obvious fact to himself once in a while. It said something about him that he didn’t look over his shoulder, just hitched his hips so it’d bring his ass right up against Shepard’s dick—like all of a sudden Shepard was the one who needed that reminder. His hand tightened on Kaidan’s hip, but it was Kaidan who was swearing again, saying _Shepard_ like it was more of a curse and less of a name, pushing Shepard over the edge.

It wasn’t often Shepard made a mess of himself, let alone another person. He was too old to come all over a guy’s back—that was a stage everyone grew out of once they left their twenties behind, or so he’d thought. But Kaidan’s back _was_ pretty exceptional—and even when Shepard clenched his eyes shut tight he could see it in front of him, naked and holding steady, the dimples at the base of the spine, riding just above his ass.

‘Shit,’ Shepard said.

‘I was waiting for that,’ Kaidan admitted.

Shepard grunted, thinking about predictability, about something to clean them off with. He thought about how badly he wanted to take another pull of whiskey—he’d even share it if Kaidan was the type, but he wasn’t—and they could chalk it all up to the usual anxieties that plagued guys when they were out in space for too long. After enough near-brushes with death, you had to remind yourself what you were doing it for.

What living was really like.

And this was it, the cool-down period when thrusters were still humming but nothing was burning inside ‘em anymore. The echoes trembling through muscle, deep down with the bone even, while everything went back to resting temperature. Remembering what it was like to take it easy for a change.

Shepard breathed, mouth still pressed against Kaidan’s back. And Kaidan was still holding position—still holding the line, so to speak.

Shepard rolled off him. He hit the wall with a dull thud, nothing too painful, bending his elbow and giving Kaidan enough room to get down beside him. He was half on Shepard and half not when he folded in, back up against Shepard’s chest, practically crushing Shepard’s arm beneath his side. He was heavy, but he’d borne up what he had to on his end of the bargain. Shepard knew all about heavy. He knew all about carrying something even when everyone else said it was damn near impossible.

It was the near that counted. The close. They were close right now, weren’t they? And they’d sure as hell taken their damn time to get there.

The cool bottle pressed into Shepard’s hip, braced between Kaidan’s body and the wall, neither of them looking at each other.

‘Lemme see that knee,’ Kaidan said, his voice about as mussed up as his hair. Shepard closed his eyes, to the point where he could almost taste the way it sounded.

Cursing suited him. More than that, Shepard’s name suited him.

‘Yes, sir, Dr. Spectre-Commander Alenko,’ Shepard replied. His voice didn’t sound too much better, as tired as it was satisfied, rumbling deep in his chest. Kaidan had to feel it; his skin prickled in return, but to his credit, he sat up, giving Shepard the perfect view of his back, tucked between Shepard’s legs and touching the scar over his knee. Shepard couldn’t see his face, didn’t know what he’d find there if he could. ‘So—what’s the official diagnosis? Am I gonna make it or do I need _plenty_ more bed-rest, doc?’

‘You talk this way to Chakwas?’ Kaidan asked. ‘I…might just have to write you up for that, Shepard.’

Shepard chuckled. Even that sounded dirty, which he liked, and Kaidan too—if the flush that crept up over his back was anything to go by. ‘I can be a good little soldier. …Sometimes. I wouldn’t try this attitude with Chakwas, anyway.’

‘And you wouldn’t let her look at your knee, either.’ Kaidan’s fingers stopped where they were, knuckles curved against the old scar. Shepard still remembered his routine checkup before he signed on to the Normandy lifestyle. Everything was in working order, but the implications— _for a guy like you_ and also _for now_ —lingered in the room, reflexes tested and cleared, that old scar not getting in his way.

Not yet.

‘It’s nothing,’ Shepard said, while Kaidan palmed the whole knee, spreading his fingers out wide and rubbing, idly, with his thumb on the inside. ‘Those rachni tried to do a number on it but there was this guy there at the time—heard he’s a commander and a Spectre and everything—who kept that from happening. You know, we’ve all got scars, Kaidan.’

‘Except for Garrus,’ Kaidan replied.

Shepard shrugged, shoulder bumping the wall again. Usually he didn’t like it—that feeling of being trapped between somebody and some _thing_ , not like he had to make a choice but like the choice had already been made by the weight of everything. Kaidan was just…comfortable, and there was nothing else to it. Shepard wanted to touch his thigh so he did, giving it a squeeze, getting his arm out from underneath his own body to sling, casual as a towel after a shower, around Kaidan’s waist.

‘Give it time,’ Shepard said. ‘With Garrus, you can’t predict anything.’

‘The two of you… You’re a lot alike.’ Kaidan reached for his fatigues, showing off his ass again, and Shepard appreciated the view for as long as it lasted. When he came back up Shepard realized lube and the condoms weren’t the only thing he’d brought with him. It wasn’t a tube of medigel but something to numb the pain, not heal it, and it was warm when Kaidan squeezed it on, massaging it into the joint.

‘Except Garrus is _that_ much better looking,’ Shepard said.

‘Not to me,’ Kaidan told him. Shepard’s fingers twitched against Kaidan’s thigh.

They slept together that night.

*


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Downtime.

It wasn’t the first time he’d woken up next to Kaidan, but it _was_ the first time other people were gonna know about it. Shepard couldn’t make a clean getaway with Kaidan’s head pillowed in the crook of his shoulder, and even if he did, it wasn’t going to make a damn bit of difference. People noticed when the commander of a ship up and disappeared for the night. They noticed what doors were locked and what doors weren’t.

It was tough to tell time without a solar cycle, but Shepard had a consistent circadian rhythm going that told him it was still early—somewhere, anyway. Common sense also told him he was gonna be ducking verbal assaults from Garrus and _real_ assaults from Williams for the rest of the trip, so there was no reason to start the day any sooner than he had to.

Even more reason to cut ties and jump ship the next time Normandy touched down.

Kaidan mumbled something in his sleep, short hair tickling bare skin where his sideburns brushed Shepard’s chest. Even in his dreams, he was arguing his point. It was almost charming, if you went for that sort of thing. Alliance didn’t hardwire that brand of stubborn single-mindedness, so Shepard had to assume it was all Kaidan, humanity’s scrappiest Spectre-Commander.

He could’ve been a krogan with that attitude, but he was too damn nice the rest of the time to pull it off.

Plus, all the headbutts would mess up his hair.

‘All right, soldier,’ Shepard said. His voice was low, but he tightened his hold on Kaidan’s arm, giving him a shake. ‘R&R’s over. Your crew’s gonna be combing the decks looking for you to tell them how to get their heads out of their asses and I’d rather find _them_ than the other way around. You get me?’

Kaidan stirred, groaning soft in a way that made it clear he wasn’t rising bright and shiny as his armor today.

It was nice to see he still had it in him to be cranky. It was probably healthy for a guy like Kaidan to admit now and then when he didn’t want to do a thing.

‘All right,’ Shepard repeated. Same words, different meaning. He shifted back against the hard mattress, tucking Kaidan in close beside him. ‘But when Williams kicks that door down, _you’re_ the one who’s getting used as a human shield.’

Kaidan turned in his hold and it was warm, sleepy, comfortable. Shepard didn’t think about drifting in and out because he wasn’t thinking about anything, mouth buried in Kaidan’s hair, breath going all steady. It was the most relaxed he’d been for too many years to bother counting, half-awake and half-sleeping with Kaidan in the same place, right along with him.

They didn’t get too many chances to enjoy themselves by doing nothing. Winning in a fight or even playing a few rounds of poker required real attention and hard work and there was pleasure in that, sure, especially in a job well done; if you didn’t enjoy what you were doing you were already one foot out of the airlock into deep, dead space.

But lying back, closing your eyes, thinking about how warm a guy was, how his chest bumped yours when you breathed together…

It was rare. It was _sweet_. Shepard had a voice in the back of his head telling him not to get used to it because nothing ever lasted, especially not the good stuff; it was a trick, an illusion, that the bad stuff seemed longer while you were living it, and the good stuff was over in the blink of an eye. That didn’t mean it wasn’t there, that you didn’t or couldn’t have it, or even that it wasn’t real.

Shepard blinked.

It was still early—just not as early as before. He could feel Kaidan stirring against him, could feel the start of desire between his legs and maybe a pulse of heat answering in Kaidan’s belly. They moved together, testing how they felt against each other, offering and sharing and being in the same place. It wasn’t all about the physical, although that was a sizeable part of it, where Shepard’s body ended and Kaidan’s began, and the bare skin, the easy muscle hardening up between. Kaidan bumped his hips against Shepard’s thigh and Shepard rolled into him, touching Kaidan’s dick.

He didn’t close his eyes again.

They were close enough that they couldn’t see anything, anyway, Kaidan’s fingers tangling with Shepard’s after pushing their hips together. Shepard got his fingers around both of them and he did it the way he liked it, with a wider grip, the thumb he’d almost lost doing pretty well by him. Doing pretty well by Kaidan, too. Old scars could ache but not with the same intensity—or something, Shepard thought, too drowsy and too turned on to keep himself from getting tangled up in what he felt just like his legs were tangled up in Kaidan’s. His ankle hooked around Kaidan’s calf and the soft, raw noises Kaidan made with his lips parted and his heartbeat stuttering were so, _so_ hot.

It was blowing off steam, all right. It was perfectly natural in the morning, bodies primed and ready. They’d been in such close proximity for so long that getting even closer had tipped the scales and now, they were caught up in each other’s gravity. Shepard wasn’t complaining, but he _had_ let his guard down. He’d taken that extra half-hour or whatever it was to hold Kaidan in his arms, establishing what they wanted mutually but not, Shepard reminded himself, hand all sticky, what they didn’t want.

Kaidan tipped his head back. He might’ve been going in for a kiss but by that point, Shepard was clearing his throat—and they missed each other. Just like that. It was just that easy to do it.

Shepard’s elbow hit the bottle. It clanged on the wall and Kaidan winced, reaching up to hold his head. Shepard’s knee was stiff, the arm braced under Kaidan’s body all tingly from falling asleep on him, and some of the whiskey had spilled.

‘Damn,’ Shepard said.

Kaidan mumbled something, agreement, not even words.

It’d be something if Williams had chosen then to kick the door down.

She didn’t, but Shepard found himself wishing they had the distraction—something other than themselves to blame for how things were shaking down.

The only way to get out of this was to get out of it literally. Shepard grabbed for the tissues nearby; when he went for his own fatigues he got a handful of Kaidan’s instead.

‘Think, uh,’ Shepard said, ‘think these belong to you.’

Kaidan coughed to clear his throat, rubbing his head when he sat up too fast. Those lines in his face were back again, drawn sharper now that he was awake and settling the mantle of _Commander_ back on his shoulders. He’d seen the difference; Shepard was close to sorry he recognized it.

‘Yeah,’ Kaidan said. Their hands brushed when he reached out for his pants. It wasn’t eye contact, but Shepard would take what he could get. ‘It’d be a little confusing for everyone if you left here dressed as CO.’

‘Confusing for _me_ most of all,’ Shepard replied. On impulse, he reached out, rifling his fingers through Kaidan’s hair, pushing it against the grain. Then he remembered the signs of Kaidan’s oncoming headache and he eased up, turning it into more of a scalp massage. ‘I think it’d take more than a change of clothes for anyone to mistake _me_ for a Spectre, Kaidan.’

The pause wasn’t anything big, just the time it took for Kaidan to smooth a wrinkle in his pants, but Shepard noticed it. _Kaidan_ wasn’t just something for between the sheets or the back room of a club, and he wanted the commander to get that.

Shepard wasn’t going to put up walls for decency’s sake. That wasn’t the job he’d been hired to do.

‘You know…’ Kaidan began. He’d held off on the shirt, not wanting to disrupt Shepard’s hand in his hair. He was looking at something in the distance, probably a stain on the wall, or a bolt that needed replacing in the support beams. Now that he was awake, the complacency of their early-morning interlude seemed more like a dream than anything real. Maybe it was—for all Shepard knew, he was due his fair share of good dreams.

They’d been a long time coming.

‘I _don’t_ know,’ Shepard said, after waiting what seemed like an appropriate amount of time. ‘I mean, I’ve been told I’m about as charming as an asari but… The mind-melding thing isn’t exactly a skill you learn by correspondence. I’ll have to ask Liara to give me a few pointers sometime.’

Kaidan blinked, then shook his head, coming out of whatever responsibility trance he’d entered, with Shepard holding the door open for him—like a real gentleman.

‘I was just thinking,’ Kaidan said. Always a bad sign. ‘We’ve been… All this time, and I don’t even know your first name.’

Shepard didn’t get any closer. He rested his arm against Kaidan’s and kept at the massage, but again, it was only the idea of it ending that made it mean something more than what it was. Shepard knew what Kaidan needed and, this time, it was something Shepard could give him. In the long run, it didn’t amount to much of anything.

‘Pretty hard to read up on somebody when they don’t have anything on file,’ Shepard admitted. ‘But I bet if you _did_ manage to pull something, you’d be the first one to say it’s a nasty business.’

‘Probably not.’ Kaidan sighed, for more than just the way Shepard’s fingers felt at his temples. ‘I tried to be sure I wasn’t hiring somebody who— Somebody who wouldn’t reflect well on the integrity of the mission. All I could find on you… I don’t think those were your real names.’

‘I’ve used ‘em about as much, though,’ Shepard said. ‘What’s it matter, anyway?’

‘I don’t know.’ Kaidan shook his head, just enough that it ended up shaking Shepard off. Shepard’s hands were empty after that, nothing against them—not the feel of Kaidan’s dick or the pulse on the underside or at his temple, the skin there equally thin and vulnerable and ultimately beating out the same standard time. ‘I just thought it was worth mentioning. That’s all.’

‘I’ll keep it on file, then.’ Shepard tapped his own temple; the beginning of his own headache had nothing to do with sympathy pains and everything to do with how lazy he’d let himself get. ‘Right up here. Only system I need for storing everything.’

Kaidan pulled his shirt on. Shepard watched his skin—the skin he liked so much—disappear under fabric, the way Kaidan rolled his sleeves to the elbow and did his best to smooth everything out.

There were too many keen eyes on board the Normandy. They’d be able to pick out the wrinkles and what they meant, the shadows under Shepard’s eyes or even the jaunt in his step.

‘It was good to see you again, Shepard,’ Kaidan said, settling his feet on the floor. He was looking for his boots again, putting them on again, with Shepard watching him from the bed again. ‘Like this, I mean. I’m glad we got the chance to… You know.’

‘Run a little personal recon?’ Shepard asked. He didn’t wince at the tone of his voice, which he thought was noble of him. ‘If you’d only said something, we could’ve done it more often— _if_ that kind of fraternization is allowed among the members of the team.’

‘It’s only fraternization if you’re a soldier.’ Kaidan got those boots on and this time Shepard didn’t untuck his shirt from his belt to get another good, long look at his bare skin. He’d seen so much of it last night—and he had to let himself get used to it but also let himself down slow. ‘You don’t have to worry about demerits that way, either.’

‘You think that’s why…?’ Shepard asked.

Kaidan glanced back over his shoulder. He had a mouth made for kissing—among other things—though Shepard had seen already how it was at calling out orders under pressure. It was a good mouth, that was all, with soft lips and an unreadable expression. Tough on the one hand, in need of so much on the other. Shepard tightened his fist around nothing. ‘I try not to think about it, actually,’ Kaidan said.

‘Yeah.’ Shepard leaned back and put his arm over his eyes, blocking out the light. ‘That makes two of us.’

He only wished it did.

It only made one of them when Kaidan left, when Shepard could bring his arm down and think, _you big stupid sonovabitch_. He didn’t say it out loud—he hadn’t graduated to that yet—and he didn’t roll over into the warmth Kaidan left behind on the bed, either. It was still there. Shepard knew it. He could feel it without making it obvious, even if he was the last guy left in the room.

Fifteen minutes later—he would’ve done all right in Alliance training, actually, considering how quickly he was able to mobilize—he was in the fuselage asking Garrus, ‘What’s my first name?’

‘Well,’ Garrus replied, while Shepard crossed his arms and watched the literal sparks fly, ‘there _was_ that one time you actually thought a mark would refer to you as Blasto the entire mission.’

‘Yeah,’ Shepard said. ‘And I don’t know _what_ that guy’s problem was. Blasto suits me. Why not? My parents could’ve been big fans of the franchise.’

‘You’re a little young for it, Shepard,’ Garrus said. It came out sounding indulgent, even if Shepard would’ve chalked that up to one of those trickier human emotions turians just didn’t get. Especially not when their attention was fixed on their true love: sensitive calibrations. ‘From what little we know about your parents, we can posit they weren’t _that_ cruel.’

Shepard adjusted his gravity, resting sideways on the wall and out of range of whatever adjustments Garrus was making. It took a certain warped sense of character to bother posing when no one was looking—but Shepard was dedicated to the act. It wasn’t any tougher than leaning out of the way of the sparks in the first place. He’d never been repair savvy, not on the same level as Garrus, but his first instinct was still to get in close and get his hands dirty.

The only thing stopping him was the clothes. The way Shepard saw it, his fatigues were probably secondhand standard issue. That didn’t make them _his,_ but he was still planning on giving them back at the end of this mission, and he got this feeling they’d go easier without any conspicuous burn marks.

One less thing for Williams to give him hell about, once she found out where the Commander had spent his off-night.

Despite the noise and the tight quarters, the distracting whine of the giant machine Garrus was so intent on tuning to turian specifications, Shepard could feel Garrus watching him. It was nothing big, just the flare of light off that eyepiece he wore, blue as a real Earth violet.

‘There was that time you used a string of names from the human play about the young man with the skull,’ Garrus said. ‘Polonius was my personal favorite.’

‘Only because it sounds so damn turian,’ Shepard replied. That’d been a fun season, before the revival had made _Hamlet_ a household name with all the families from the Serpent Nebula to the Kepler Verge. ‘That Francis Kitt ruined a good thing, you know?’

‘I do.’ Garrus popped a panel shut with one hand and the mechanical whining stopped. ‘John.’

‘Garrus,’ Shepard said.

The only thing that would’ve made it better were a couple of protein-appropriate drinks.

Garrus didn’t have to say, _Does that answer your question?_ It was more or less implied—and both of them knew the answer already.

It sure did.

But John wasn’t a real name, not the way Garrus was. It might as well have been something somebody at an Earth-site orphanage slapped on his bed when he first came in, nothing he inherited from a father or grandfather, and nobody’d used it to call him on anything in well over ten years, maybe closer to twenty.

‘Well okay then,’ Shepard said, unfolding his arms and pushing off the wall. ‘I’m hungry. You hungry, Garrus?’

He ate that morning like he hadn’t since he was still growing, and if Garrus noticed the difference in his appetite, he didn’t mention it. He’d already dropped all the truth into the conversation that he could for one morning, and despite turian stamina, he knew when he was wearing his human counterpart past the muscle to the bone.

Williams wasn’t so kind.

‘I’ve never seen anybody eat _Normandy_ food like that before,’ she said.

Her voice could’ve snapped steel. It could’ve snapped Shepard’s neck. ‘Guess I just woke up on the right side of the bed this morning,’ he said, ready to use his spoon as a weapon if occasion called for it.

It wasn’t so much the side of the bed as who was in the bed with him. Then Williams melted his balls down for scrap with a single look, and Shepard went back to the protein-booster slop on his plate with a grin fighting to get free.

The taste killed it soon enough.

*


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shepard does and doesn't like the view on Virmire.

By the time afternoon rolled around, they had their next coordinates, nowhere near the Citadel where Shepard was still waiting to be dropped off. No rest for the wicked—and no rest for the people chasing them. No rest for the guys signed on to the task, either; Shepard was going to have to wear those fatigues one more time and there was always the chance he’d end up wearing them out.

Virmire, in the Attican Traverse. Shepard had seen so many frontiers in his time the word was starting to lose its meaning. And considering how they were always pushing it—pushing it back, pushing their luck forward—it didn’t hold the same weight as it used to.

‘Salarians,’ Shepard said, shaking his head. ‘It always has to be salarians, doesn’t it?’

‘You say that about _all_ the races,’ Garrus replied.

‘You know, he _did_ say it about turians last week,’ Liara agreed.

‘And batarians just yesterday,’ Williams added, without looking up from where she was priming her assault rifle. She kept looking at Shepard while she did it; it gave him chills more than the thought of finally pinning down this turian the Alliance had Kaidan chasing all over the galaxy. Probably because that wasn’t Shepard’s fight, but this—the personal stuff, the way Williams saw to her weapons—was.

‘I’m touched,’ Shepard said. ‘You know me so well—and here I thought I’d still be a mystery, after all this time.’

‘Perhaps we should have implied otherwise in order to maintain the illusion?’ Liara asked.

Williams snorted. ‘You kidding? Shepard’s head’s big enough as it is. Humoring him isn’t the medicine he needs.’

It was good for them—to keep joking around. If they didn’t, they’d have to listen to Wrex grinding his teeth over working with salarians and the sound made you want to get the hell off the Normandy, yeah, but it wasn’t exactly inspiring.

‘The last time we worked closely with salarians it ended up with you making me an offer,’ Shepard told Kaidan while they suited up. He didn’t look over, didn’t check for any signs of the night before, any mark that he’d made on Kaidan’s body. And when they were finished, all they had were dents and dings and scratches in their armor, which Kaidan kept polishing over. He looked the part of the first human Spectre, all right. He had since the beginning—but Shepard knew he was a man just as much as he was brochure material, and he had to put his helmet on tight to guard against the thought.

‘I remember that,’ Kaidan said. ‘But the way I remember the rest…you didn’t take me up on it.’

Shepard hadn’t. He’d taken him up on a few other things, but they were being brought in for a smooth landing, and it didn’t seem like the right time to mention it.

Past atmosphere, they had to split into two teams—there was no slipping the Normandy by the AA guns set up on Virmire’s surface, and only a few squad members could tuck themselves into the Mako at a time.

Wrex and Garrus called _not it_ so fast it would’ve made Shepard’s head spin if he hadn’t been ready for it. That left Liara and Williams, the latter of whom was always going to sacrifice herself for the greater good.

She was too well-trained a soldier to let anyone else take the heat, and she definitely wasn’t about to let a pretty asari researcher fall victim to Shepard’s bad driving.

There was always the chance, one of these days, that they were gonna stop letting Shepard take the wheel, but Kaidan strapped himself into the passenger seat with a set to his jaw like he was already fighting off nausea, and Williams didn’t trust Shepard to sit at her back. There was only one place for him here. He ran his hand over the steering wheel like it was an old friend he hadn’t seen for years.

Of course, if Shepard could touch his old friends like that, then his Garrus problems wouldn’t be problems anymore. But that wasn’t reality—and thinking about it when he had to drive was only going to lead to a crash.

He liked to at least see them coming, if they had to happen at all.

Adding insult to injury—making the job more difficult than it needed to be—someone had set up geth armatures and turrets for him to steer around.

‘Like I wasn’t _already_ spinning the wheels in all this water,’ Shepard said, pulling a last-minute 360 and taking them clear of a missile that would’ve hit them broadside otherwise.

That was why he was behind the steering wheel and no one else. They had the skills but not the guts; it took a certain kind of dedicated to face a barrel roll head on, without shying away at the last second.

Williams punched the roof but she wasn’t yelling, so that had to mean she liked it. Shepard wasn’t about to call what they had going respect, but he was definitely warming up to her. Was it so crazy to imagine it might happen in reverse?

‘You’re on _reverse_ ,’ Kaidan said, loud enough to snap Shepard out of it.

‘Evasive maneuvers,’ Shepard replied.

It took a certain kind of dedicated to pull them back from the brink of a barrel roll, too, which Shepard managed, though with all the bouncing up and down they were doing to avoid the missiles, he was starting to regret his big breakfast.

Ground was never steady when you needed it most. Something from the past always came back to bite your ass in the present, and the future…

Well, for the time being, Shepard was working on getting them past those armatures, nothing more and nothing less. Hitting those things down and driving the Mako over them after was one of the more satisfying pieces of tactical improvisation he’d gone for in his life.

‘Was that really necessary?’ Kaidan asked, after the fourth bump shuddered through the Mako’s sturdy frame.

‘They’re pissing me off,’ Shepard said. ‘And I was in such a good mood before.’

‘Shut up and drive, Shepard,’ Williams told him.

 _Shut up and fly_ was more like it. The Mako was spending more time with its wheels in the air than they were on solid ground, but Shepard was keeping score of the number of missiles that actually connected with them—and two wasn’t so bad, even if the third time was supposed to be the charm.

And all this was _before_ they got to chat with their new salarian friends.

Warzones were warzones. Shepard didn’t expect them to be pretty and he didn’t expect his hand in them to be easy; that’d be too much like favoritism and favoritism was one of the many reasons he hadn’t consigned himself to Alliance training in the first place. At least it was one of the ones he had some control over. ‘Remember that thing I said about nightmares?’ Shepard asked, swinging out of the Mako when it finally rolled to a stop and there was a momentary ceasefire—a psych-out, though, because the pause only meant they were being recalibrated in the crosshairs, weapons reloaded, sights trained on targets that were a whole lot smaller but a whole lot less armored.

‘Hard to forget,’ Kaidan replied.

‘Shepard, if you fought half as well as you talked, we’d’ve stopped this war by now,’ Williams said.

Hell, she was probably right.

Gunfire exploded rapid-shot and Shepard focused on the targets he could take out from behind cover—while everyone was distracted by big, mean Williams and her heavy fire. They worked well together, all three of them, like this was nothing more than training courses—only the sizzling corpses once they’d cleared the area said differently. Shepard nudged a heap of cybernetics with his boot on their way past.

Someone else had woken up on the wrong side of the bed that morning. Everyone had to sometime in order to keep the balance, if not the peace.

Now they just had to hope Wrex’s personal issues with the salarians wouldn’t blow the whole deal sky-high. The enemy they were chasing today might’ve been just as crazy as Saleon way back when, but even Shepard could admit they were in the big-leagues now. There was more riding on this than a transport ship full of unlucky bastards with freshly planted organs. They couldn’t afford to let this one go; there was no wiggle-room like there was in the Mako, nothing to break their fall. There was no _next time_.

There was _only_ this time.

And it all came down to salarians holding the goddamn line.

At least it wasn’t batarians.

‘Don’t say it,’ Williams told him.

‘Say what?’ Shepard asked. It was easy to keep an eye on Kaidan with the helmet hiding his sightlines, giving him a good read of everything in his narrowed field of vision. But the armor hid what was going on inside—and Shepard didn’t go for the whole _fighting with an army_ thing.

Fighting with a team was bad enough. There was always so much to look out for, so many shoulders to look over.

‘You know what I mean,’ Williams said.

‘Maybe you should switch things up, worry about Wrex for a while,’ Shepard suggested, even though they both knew their heads were just as hard.

It wasn’t Wrex Shepard was worried about. It wasn’t even himself. And there was no use complaining about it now.

Shepard stopped Kaidan on his way by, one gloved hand on his tight bracer. ‘Remember krogan respect,’ he said. ‘Wrex won’t listen to a thing you say unless you knock heads with him first, right? At least you’ve got your helmet on.’

Kaidan huffed, halfway to a chuckle but not quite crossing the finish line with it. ‘You weren’t serious about that.’

Shepard gave Kaidan’s shoulder a friendly tap to prove he wasn’t pulling him aside just to mess with him and Kaidan allowed it. ‘Guess you’re the one who’s gonna find out.’

‘I’m really supposed to tell him we’ll be better off without this genophage cure,’ Kaidan said. ‘But how am I supposed to do that when _I_ don’t even know it for sure? No one can know that kind of stuff.’ He was hesitating now, didn’t know what to do with his hands while Williams conferred with the salarian captain and Wrex shot fish out in the hazy distance.

It was a pretty place, Virmire. Too much water for Shepard’s tastes, and the electrical storms probably played hell with any kind of communications—but the planet had horizon views for days. You had to sacrifice something for views like that. Comfort, mostly. Common sense. Common ground, even.

If Shepard squinted, it almost seemed like the kind of place you’d land on purpose and not just because you had a grisly job to work out. Maybe when all this was through, if they didn’t leave a smoking crater behind when they were finished…

A fresh round of fire from Wrex’s pistol set that line of thinking straight. It was loud enough to give Shepard a headache, so he couldn’t imagine what it was doing to Kaidan.

‘I’m gonna let you in on a little secret, Kaidan,’ Shepard said. He didn’t know whether it was the sound of his voice or the use of his first name, but Kaidan stood that much straighter. ‘We’re all faking it. No one knows what the hell they’re doing—you _talk_ like you know, and you figure it out as you go along. That’s it. That’s all there is.’

‘So the talking you do…’ Kaidan tilted his head, sunlight glancing off the dark visor of his helmet. ‘That’s part of the act?’

‘Just go make sure Wrex doesn’t end this mission before it starts, all right?’ Shepard pushed him by the shoulder, sending him forward along the little spit of land the salarians had claimed for recon.

Out of the corner of his eye, he was pretty sure he saw Williams give a nod of approval.

Shepard vacated, leaving Kaidan to his diplomacy act. The truth was, he’d be better at it than Shepard—who had no idea if he’d be able to look a guy in the eye and tell him he had to give something that important up.

And maybe that was another reason why the Alliance lifestyle hadn’t been for Shepard, when you put aside all the accidents that got in the way. It came down to gambling, to knowing how to play the game. But there was the little matter of having the right cards to hand, too, and of knowing when to shuffle, when not to fold, when bluffing was the only thing that stood between you and extinction.

From that angle, Virmire looked too damn bleak.

‘I like the new armor,’ Shepard told Williams, once the salarian captain broke away to talk to his men. ‘Pink’s always been my color, but I think you pull it off better than, say…Garrus.’

‘That’s real funny.’ Williams’s tone suggested she didn’t know what funny was—which was a lie. Just because she wasn’t laughing didn’t mean she didn’t find the whole mess as hilarious as it was. ‘The Commander said it was either me or you to get this suit and his vote was for _you_ to wear it.’

Shepard chuckled. He had to. ‘You’re better at this than Jenkins over there,’ he said. ‘No wonder I like you so much.’

‘Save it for the other side of this one, Shepard,’ Williams replied.

The thought hadn’t really occurred to him. Thinking beyond the moment was a dangerous game—even more dangerous than dealing with genophages and cures and angry krogans. Wrex voicing his frustration split the air like a landmine going off, but it barely made the surface of the clear Virmire water ripple.

That was all they were: not enough to disturb the bigger ocean, only they kept shouting at it anyway.

Damn. Shepard needed to put that one down, get a copyright. He’d make a fortune off commemorative plates with his slogan stamped on ‘em alone and then he could retire to Omega, be one of those washed-up mercs who got lucky and got out.

Just after he helped some guy and his team save the galaxy with a bunch of down-and-dirty salarians on a half-doomed planet.

Half _not_ doomed, when you turned it the other way.

The standing around part that came just before the action—Shepard liked that the least. But Wrex hadn’t gone rogue on them, hadn’t tried to head-butt Kaidan into a fine paste, and when Shepard finally looked over it seemed like things were going to be okay. Nobody pounding the first human Spectre into little more than a splatter on the water, which was exactly the rousing endorsement they needed.

‘Looks like you did it to me,’ Shepard said, Kaidan drawing up alongside him, still standing straight.

‘Yeah,’ Kaidan replied. ‘Doesn’t mean I liked it, though.’

Shepard watched the water. The glare off the surface was blinding, it was so bright. ‘Doesn’t mean you should’ve,’ he said.

All that was left was to figure out which idiots were going on the offensive—taking the front-way around while the real force came in from behind. Classic, Shepard thought, only it was the sort of _evasive maneuver_ you couldn’t do with just a couple of guys in a single rough-terrain vehicle. It took an army. A planet. It took numbers, guts, and nerves of steel. It took a certain amount of crazy.

Naturally, Williams volunteered for the position right away.

‘Don’t look at me,’ Shepard said, when he felt Kaidan’s focus fall on him. He liked to think he always knew when Kaidan was watching. He liked to think maybe Kaidan was remembering something else, some other position, without letting it distract him. ‘Not going on suicide missions is how I make it out of these things alive so often. You’ve got your rulebook, I’ve got mine.’

But it didn’t sit right with him.

‘Actually, as Commander, I was thinking if anyone should go—’ Kaidan began.

‘Slap me with a demerit later if you have to, Commander,’ Williams replied. ‘Throw me in the brig, I don’t care. But you’re _not_ leading that squad. I am. It’s too damn risky.’

‘You two keep fighting over it like that, you’re going to make me wish I’d thrown my name in,’ Shepard said. His breath bounced back to him over his mouthpiece, smelling like stale breakfast.

‘Good soldiers,’ the salarian captain said. He’d introduced himself when Shepard was only half-listening, enough to know it was a name and not a sneeze. Shepard had the _Captain_ part, which was usually all that mattered with the military type. ‘Usually a mark of a good commander, though in this case, Commander Alenko was second to volunteer. Leading by example?’

‘Over my dead body,’ Williams said.

‘Actually, that’s exactly the scenario I’m looking to avoid,’ Kaidan said.

Shepard kept his mouth shut. It wasn’t that he was so interested in seeing this play out but more that he didn’t know which way Kaidan was about to swing, so he couldn’t tell which side to throw his weight behind.

All he _did_ know was that Shepard and Alenko were winding up on the same side. With stakes this high, there was no way he was letting the Spectre-Commander go off in a heroic blaze of glory. Those moves only panned out well in the Blasto series and Kaidan was short a few tentacles of his own happy ending.

‘Look,’ Williams said. She’d crossed her arms, pink armor-joints over white plate. Anyone who judged her by the color of that suit was gonna wind up with the surprise of their life. ‘I’m not doing it by myself. Captain Kirrahe’s got some first-class troops here.’

The _for a salarian_ part was implied, but Shepard heard it in the way she hesitated.

‘At least take Jenkins with you,’ Kaidan said. His tone said he knew he was bargaining from a disadvantage. With enough time, Shepard could teach him how to hide that. It was no good if even the Commander didn’t know he was holding all the cards. ‘Or—Vakarian, maybe.’

‘If it’s all the same to you, I think my skills might be better applied on Shadow Team,’ Garrus said. One of these days, Shepard was gonna corner him until he passed along that ancient turian trick of appearing out of nowhere whenever his name was mentioned. It’d be worth it just to enjoy the looks on everyone’s faces when Shepard caught them talking about him while they thought his back was turned. ‘Sounds like a lot of...subterfuge.’

‘You know Garrus and subterfuge,’ Shepard added. ‘They go together like the drell and hanar. Might as well take him with you, Commander. And Williams can always use Jenkins for a human shield—the guy won’t even come out of it with a dent on him, will you, Jenkins?’

Jenkins grunted, which Shepard took for a yes, and also a hint not to bring up dents around him anymore—since he was still looking to give Shepard a few as payback for his attitude when they’d met.

Sometimes, a first impression was all somebody got.

Shepard looked at Garrus, the only guy there who knew his first name. He also knew how to pick up on subtle cues, stepping aside with Shepard for the few seconds of private conversation he needed.

The plan was backwards, that was for sure. Shepard could feel sweat beading at the back of his neck, right under the collar, making him itch. Any frontal assault was going to need to be just tricky enough to pull through to the other end and without someone to think that way—to bring a little bit of Shadow Team mentality to the diversion—chances were they might not make it.

And Shepard had a soft spot for Jenkins. The big lug really had grown on him.

Shepard ignored the sweat—and the way Garrus was watching him through the glint of his visor, taking it all in, probably figuring out what Shepard was going to say before he said it.

‘Look after the Commander, all right, Garrus?’ he said. ‘Humans bruise easy, way more than turians or krogans. Even first human Spectres.’

‘Volunteering,’ Garrus replied. ‘How unexpected.’

Shepard could detect the note of obvious sarcasm, even sharper than Garrus usually was. As always, he was a sniper who knew how to hit the mark dead center, and Shepard felt it—straight through the heart.

‘Save it for later,’ Shepard said. ‘I know I’ll never hear the end of it, so the least you can do is give me these last moments.’

‘That sounds an awful lot like a final request, Shepard,’ Garrus told him.

‘Yeah, well—it’s not,’ Shepard replied.

He broke away easy. Decisions were the hard part, not following through with them. When he headed to Williams, he could practically see the expression she was wearing under her helmet, the cock of her brow and the set of her jaw.

‘Don’t worry,’ Shepard said. ‘I’ll go out in front. You can keep an eye on my back at all times and who knows? Maybe we’ll make some sweet memories together.’

The only thing that surprised Shepard was realizing Williams didn’t know what to say, even if he’d been hoping for a _Shit, Shepard_ or something equally satisfying. He felt the grin break out first but managed to hold the chuckle down.

‘Shepard—’ Kaidan began, but Williams was already on the move, and Shepard had made a promise. She didn’t like it when he brought up the rear—who’d trust a merc behind them? Only a damn fool—and Shepard was already lifting his hand in a final wave, not a salute.

‘Hold the line, right?’ he said. ‘Besides—I think you’re gonna enjoy working with Garrus. One of life’s lesser-known pleasures.’

He didn’t turn around, trotting to keep up with the pace Ashley set, loading himself onto the ground transport. He was about as dumb as cargo, so it worked out.

*


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Virmire happens, a little bit the same, a little bit different.

When the shooting started, Shepard didn’t have time to regret his choice.

And it _was_ his—nobody’d strong-armed him into making it; nobody’d bothered to bring it up; nobody’d been expecting it, except maybe for Garrus, but he didn’t count. It wasn’t some kind of Alliance trick, either, that reverse psychology stuff that only worked on the people who gave a damn, because Shepard didn’t.

It was his choice.

He didn’t want to be on the team with the pissed off krogan fighting alongside the salarians who’d worked on destroying his entire race—that was what he told himself. But it wasn’t easy to remember how much better he had it, not when he was ducking for cover to avoid being vaporized by an AA gun that wouldn’t let up on him, not even for a second.

That was fine. Shepard didn’t like breathing anyway.

He liked even less the feeling that they were being watched, spied on by some benevolent force that was gonna get itself killed focusing on protecting others rather than covering its own damned ass. Kaidan was definitely doing what he could for them behind the scenes, even though Williams _and_ Shepard would’ve told him to mind his business so they could mind theirs. The geth malfunctions had Garrus’s signature all over them, like a friendly hail from across the base. It didn’t feel right to complain—especially not in earshot of the salarians—but Shepard wasn’t about to thank Shadow Team for the extra help anytime soon.

There were worse positions to be in, from the sound of things. Team Mannovai was getting it from every angle and it was all Williams could do to maneuver their side into an effective position for supporting fire. Only the geth had superior position in the air, which made it easy for them to pin down the infiltration team.

‘Damn it,’ Williams said, close enough that Shepard could hear the pop as she reloaded her rifle, the hiss of the empty clip hitting water. She wasn’t talking to him—or to anyone, not really. They were all connected through the open comm line Kirrahe had designated—the same line Kaidan was listening in on.

‘Not exactly what you signed up for, Williams?’ Shepard asked.

He had to roll to make it to the next piece of cover, coming up against the bunker they were bound for and dragging one of Kirrahe’s men with him. He’d say this for the STG types: when they said hold the line they damn well stuck to it. Maybe Wrex wouldn’t have as much trouble finding common ground with _these_ salarians.

‘Shut it,’ Williams replied. She held up a fist to signal a hold while the drones began dropping out of the air, overload frying their circuits.

Garrus again. This time, Shepard couldn’t help but grin, knowing Shadow Team wouldn’t see it.

‘Team Aegohr, do you copy?’ Kirrahe said over the comm. When they were finished—if all involved parties made it out alive—Shepard was going to have a talk with the guy about how to give his splinter groups catchier names. ‘This is Mannovai. We’re going to break cover and head for the breeding facility. With any luck, we can clear a path for Shadow Team to set up the explosives.’

‘And if we’re fresh outta luck?’ Shepard asked. He jammed the heel of his hand into the side of his pistol when it overheated, slamming it end-first into a geth’s head after it came too close.

Garrus had his way of taking the geth down and Shepard had another. The styles complimented each other, even on opposite sides of the field.

But no amount of tactical synergy could make up for the fact that the geth just kept coming. You could do all the damage in the world and the salarians weren’t exactly dropping like flies—not as fast as forces on the other side—but they _were_ outnumbered.

Shepard didn’t like the odds. If he’d been betting on the fight, he would’ve known the smart move wouldn’t be banking his credits on himself.

Rifle shot exploded behind Shepard’s head—it was Williams, taking down another geth that was coming up on him. ‘Didn’t know you cared, Williams,’ Shepard said.

Williams didn’t bother to point out he was chatting too much and fighting too little when he returned the favor, clipping one in the shoulder, then between the eyes as it staggered toward her.

‘Hey—at least it’s not giant bugs this time, right?’ Shepard added.

Kinetic barriers were one kind of protection. Optimism was another—less predictable and ten times as annoying.

But even with all the optimism in the world, they couldn’t hope to hold the position. Not for much longer. They were being swarmed, and Shepard was beyond the point of sweat, beyond feeling cold or hot, hand cramping so bad he didn’t notice it anymore. It just _was_. That was a good thing, although his boots were sloshy, armor chill from the water and hot from the volleys raining down on them, without pause for cease-fire.

‘Commander, do you copy?’ Williams’s voice cut through everything—Shepard’s pulse, the endless rounds, salarian marching orders, each splash as enemies and allies hit the ground—reading loud and clear through Shepard’s earpiece. ‘We can’t hold the position. There’s too many of them over here.’

‘This is Commander Alenko—we copy,’ Kaidan replied. ‘We’re on our way.’

Distorted, warped, cutting out halfway between—it was still his voice. No question about that.

And of course they were coming. Kaidan couldn’t do anything but.

Even worse than knowing he was out there on the other side—banking his credits on them, not on the geth—was thinking about him riding in to save them because they couldn’t look after themselves.

Shepard shot a few more geth. It didn’t make him feel any better, although it did make them more dead. He had to flip one over onto its back and blast its chest open because he let it get in too close; the recoil on his pistol nearly knocked him back into the arms of another.

‘One at a time,’ Shepard said. ‘There’s plenty of me to go around—just ask the batarians.’

Like Williams, he was only talking to himself.

Another salarian collapsed next to him and Shepard shot the geth off his body. Too late. He saw Jenkins go under three at a time and he wondered how they’d come to this point, how they’d let it get so bad.

‘Commander,’ Williams said—and _now_ who was the one talking too much and fighting too little, anyway? ‘We’re doing our best over here, but if you’re coming to get us, you’d better make it quick.’

‘Yeah,’ Shepard added, letting the next blast speak for itself, lobbing a hand-grenade into a group of enemies and watching the parts fly when it detonated. ‘Otherwise there won’t be anyone to come get.’

On the other end, all they heard was silence.

It was the opposite of peaceful.

The grenade had bought Shepard just enough time to fall back, standing with his shoulders pressed to Williams’s. Despite the armor standing between them, he could feel her breathing—the only thing he _could_ feel, something coming from outside of himself. The salarians were regrouping, but they were being boxed in.

‘Remind me again why I thought coming with you would be a good idea?’ Shepard asked.

Williams laughed, sharp as ricochet. ‘’Cause you’ve been hit in the head one time too many, maybe?’

‘You know you liked it,’ Shepard said. ‘Admit it. You were impressed.’

‘I’m not that easy.’ Williams reloaded again, still not tired out. But she wasn’t a machine—and even those could be taken down. Shepard had seen enough of that today to know all about it.

‘I miss the giant bugs,’ he said.

‘Quit wasting air,’ Williams replied. She shouldered her rifle to take a running slide, knocking one of the STG operatives behind cover as a rocket exploded in the empty space where they’d both been standing seconds earlier.

‘..pinned down at the AA tower,’ Kirrahe was saying over his own radio. Shepard had lost sight of him in the chaos, and was surprised as anyone to feel relief at the sound of the little guy’s voice. ‘The bomb should be your first priority.’

‘Is that the commander?’ Williams asked. Shepard saw her pop cover to fire two into a geth’s damaged chest plating. ‘If I see you coming before the mission’s complete I’ll drop you _first,_ sir. We can hold ’em.’

They couldn’t, Shepard thought, but it was nice she’d thought to say it, even nicer than Shepard not piping up to contradict. Kaidan was smart. He’d figure it out.

And if he didn’t, then he had Garrus to spell it out for him.

Shepard’s hands were cramping again from the repetition of fire-and-reload and he flexed his fingers before slamming a fresh clip into his favorite pistol.

They’d come a long way together, him and the M-5 Phalanx—from batarian pirates to Blue Suns, chasing down Garrus’s one that got away and Shepard waking up with one of his own the next morning. He wasn’t a fatalist, but he knew what the strain in his muscles meant, the same thing he’d known since the second drop-ship had handed off a whole wave of fresh enemies to pit against their squad. This was what Kirrahe meant when he said they’d be taking the heat off Shadow Team. Being a merc meant coming at a situation sidelong from all the wrong angles, but every now and then you had to hit an enemy dead on with a krogan charge—and hope to hell their head wasn’t any harder than yours.

There were fuel canisters lining the trench below their tower, set up to power the breeding tanks where Kaidan was working to blow everything to kingdom come. If the right shot hit them, maybe they could work to give the whole explosion plan a head start.

Of course, getting the right shot meant breaking cover. It was the sort of damned catch-22 that happened when you had arms instead of long, stretchy tentacles, which was why guys like Blasto always wound up with the happy ending, while guys like Shepard were lucky if they wound up somewhere with a headstone.

‘Gonna try something,’ Shepard said, for the benefit of anyone still listening. Just so no one would chalk it up to a mistake when the shrapnel started flying.

Another salarian went down and he had to step quick to avoid being next in the line of fire, wrenching his bad knee with a flare of pain that made him feel like he’d been socked in the gut.

Somewhere, Kaidan was thinking _I told you so._ Except he couldn’t, because everyone had more important things on their mind than a merc who couldn’t follow orders.

That was exactly why he’d hired on.

Shepard started running.

He thought he heard Williams behind him, bellowing more like a commander than a lieutenant, but there was nothing from Kaidan over the open feed. Shepard didn’t need to hear him. Actually, he was glad he couldn’t, since he knew it’d split him between two points of reference—Alliance brand caution and Kaidan’s instinct for doing the right thing.

Only one of those two had rubbed off on Shepard in their time together.

At least it was the better one.

Shepard only had to hold out for a few more steps. He went down on one knee, his good one—not a good one anymore—and thought he could feel the flare of heat that meant Williams was still covering him. Hopefully she’d get out of this with a commendation, a medal that’d remind her of him every time she polished it. Shepard slid forward, skidding on his shins through the water, and fired dead center into the fuel canisters. He only needed one clear shot, probably, but at this stage in the game, he wasn’t going to hedge his bets.

He got three shots in before the blast threw him backward, rocking the ground beneath hard enough to toss him sky-high. He knew it wasn’t more than a couple of feet, but with the fire in front of him, engulfing the geth, and the shock to his system, the pain in his leg—pistol blown out of his hand, the old scar from the batarians suddenly finding a new way to hurt like hell—it felt like forever.

At least until it stopped.

*

There was no first thing he thought before he opened his eyes. It was _after_ he opened them that thinking happened—and then, the only thing that came to mind was how damn good it felt to be thinking at all.

He cracked one eye open first, followed by the other. The quiet beep of condition monitors meant he was probably in a hospital instead of a batarian slave camp and he didn’t have to wait for it to ‘all come back’ to him because he remembered exactly where he’d been before—mostly because it was so damn stupid.

Those things stuck with you, in the back of your throat or in your stomach like a bad meal. Mistakes were easier to call to mind than success, at least in Shepard’s experience.

There weren’t any tubes. That was a good sign. He could feel most parts of his body, hear the bleeping of the monitors and see the ugly white ceiling above his head, which he could still move, craning his neck to one side and waiting for the blossom of pain to follow.

It didn’t.

Either the explosion had been smaller than it looked from up close or they’d pumped the good stuff into his system, heavy-grade painkillers so he didn’t feel anything at all.

He didn’t know who he wanted to see—Williams to know she was all right; Kaidan to know _he_ was all right; or Garrus because he was Garrus. But he had to hope there was medication involved, because all the wooziness was making him sentimental, and wasn’t it nice to have something to blame when that happened?

But there wasn’t anyone there. 

Shepard should’ve expected it—one good deed stacked against the rest of the questionable ones didn’t amount to much these days, and Shepard wasn’t the type of guy people stuck around when he bet on the wrong team. That wasn’t how it worked. He knew that, maybe better than anyone.

He closed his eyes again. It was black or white, the darkness on his eyelids or the halogen strip lighting on the ceiling.

He knew that, too.

‘Shepard,’ Kaidan said—from somewhere close, but still a little bit far.

Shepard swallowed.

Someone was there after all, just not in the place Shepard had been looking for him.

‘That’s me,’ he replied. His voice could’ve used a cough or two so it sounded less rusty, but it held up all right. ‘Not that I’d recognize myself in the mirror after a stunt like that. I’m guessing we beat the odds on Virmire, huh?’

‘Yeah.’ Kaidan’s voice moved in closer. Shepard didn’t open his eyes, not even when he felt a shadow fall over him, heard the sound of Kaidan pulling a chair up to his bed. ‘Somebody did, anyway. I’m… I’m thinking it was you more than anyone else, though.’

Shepard tried to laugh, but it made his chest feel like a herd of elcor was trampling over it, ribs on fire and his lungs in shreds. Then he exhaled and that hurt too. It was really gonna suck when curiosity got the better of him and he took a sneak peek at everything going on below the neck. Painkillers could only do so much—and helping him forget what hurt once he’d seen it wasn’t on the list of side-effects. Imagination had a way of filling in the blanks when it came to an injury, even for the most practical of people.

Shepard could live without knowing how bad it looked for awhile. There were more interesting things to set his sights on anyway.

‘Williams,’ he said, turning his head. Through the narrow slit of his eyes he could see the edge of the bed and his own bare wrist with a medic bracelet snapped around it. Beyond that was Kaidan’s chest, fading leather chestpiece with an Alliance stamped over his heart. ‘She’s not…’

‘Not here,’ Kaidan said. It was starting to get uncomfortable that he knew how to finish Shepard’s sentences, but neither of them commented on it. ‘She’s in the lobby, actually. Playing Skyllian-Five with some of the salarians.’

There were bright spots of gray in Shepard’s eyes when he opened them fully, squinting into the quiet room. Whatever chaos was happening outside, it was behind closed doors. Apparently someone had wasted good credits on getting him a room with a view—Shepard didn’t have to think long and hard about who _that_ might’ve been.

‘Is she taking them for all they’re worth?’ Shepard asked.

This time, it was Kaidan who laughed like it hurt him. ‘They lost a lot of men on Virmire. I think everyone’s…taking it easy, so far.’

‘Sounds like one hell of a boring game,’ Shepard said. It took him a minute to figure out how to shift onto his side, but that was why he had to do it. Knowing what to do with his body—and timing it right—was technically his livelihood.

Lose that, and the rest went with it.

He’d never pictured staring Kaidan down from the business end of a hospital bed before, but he wasn’t about to let a situation get the better of him just because it was unexpected. It wasn’t firing live rounds into a mess of fuel canisters waiting to blow. Imaginative or not, Shepard knew how to improvise better than that. Usually.

‘So—John,’ Kaidan said.

That damned hospital bracelet.

At least Shepard didn’t have to blame Garrus for letting it slip. At least he didn’t have a middle name stuck in there—which would’ve made it even worse. He closed his eyes and when he opened them again, a third time, Kaidan was still there, on the verge of smiling.

‘You gotta admit,’ Shepard said, ‘I surprised you back there.’

‘You surprise me a lot of places,’ Kaidan replied.

The feeling was mutual. Shepard cleared something out of his throat while Kaidan rested his knuckles on the edge of the cot, somewhere close to the bracelet that’d betrayed Shepard’s final secret. No more air of mystery. No more coming and going as he pleased. No more chance of getting Kaidan to believe his first name really _was_ Blasto, either.

They’d all made sacrifices, but this was the worst, no question.

‘How’s the knee?’ Shepard asked. ‘I can’t feel it, so… I’m figuring that’s a good sign. Either that, or it’s not there—but we’ve had trouble with each other for a while now. Wouldn’t mind cutting it loose.’

Kaidan touched Shepard’s wrist with his thumb, fingertip running alongside the clasp. He was on his way to doing something important—Shepard could see it in his face, lips parted, eyes brighter somehow because of the shadows—and then he just did it, resting his hand over Shepard’s at his side. It wasn’t heavy at all, even if Shepard felt it all over.

Maybe that was the painkillers talking, body waking up to the force of the trauma it wasn’t meant to live through.

‘No—it’s still there,’ Kaidan said. ‘Could’ve had it checked out easier, but…you’re not an easy guy, are you?’

‘I try not to be,’ Shepard replied.

There was more to it than that—Kaidan leaning forward, his other hand dropping to Shepard’s thigh, just above the knee in question, touch light and gentle but more than a clinical assessment.

‘Can you feel that?’ Kaidan asked.

Shepard could. He swallowed. ‘Hey, watch it, Commander,’ he said. ‘I was injured in the line of duty. You’re just as ruthless as some batarians I’ve met, you know that?’

Kaidan looked like he was about to use Shepard’s first name again and Shepard didn’t want to hear how it sounded; he was still caught up in the way it’d been the first time, low on Kaidan’s usual rasp, with something beneath it, shaping it on his tongue. That was a tongue Shepard had felt on other parts of his body and inside his mouth and still it managed to do as much to him saying his own damn name—one he’d lived with his whole life—as it did between his legs.

‘Go on,’ Shepard said.

Kaidan blinked. ‘Go on what?’

‘Kiss me already.’ Shepard gave him what he thought was his best angle—the side that hurt the least, anyway. ‘You know you’ve been waiting for it—I can see through Alliance when they’re feeding me a story, remember? Don’t bother with the cover-up.’

The confusion faded from Kaidan’s eyes, replaced by something else—something stronger, something more dangerous—and Shepard wondered whether this was the second tactical mistake he’d made in a row, the first one being back on Virmire, when he’d abandoned every damn rule he’d ever lived by, prepared to die outside of them, instead.

‘If you insist,’ Kaidan said, and closed the distance for them, lips brushing carefully over the corner of Shepard’s mouth.

Shepard closed his eyes—not because he didn’t want to see what was right in front of him, but because he actually wanted to enjoy it.

Being treated like he was damaged goods—that was another matter for another time. Kaidan wasn’t being tentative, just careful, and even if Shepard preferred a kiss with a little more tongue, he could still feel Kaidan’s stubble scraping his, the way he pursed his lips at the end with one brief hint of teeth.

‘Not your best,’ Shepard said when it was over, Kaidan’s forehead resting at his temple. ‘But it was up there, I’ll give it that.’

He didn’t know how he got the words out and his voice didn’t sound like itself, but if Kaidan tried to call him on it, he’d blame it on the atmosphere, the morphine drip, anything he could. He could feel Kaidan’s nose against his cheek, cold skin and warm breath, the tickle of his lashes. He could feel things, which was more than a guy like him could’ve expected from the situation.

‘Huh,’ Kaidan said, right against Shepard’s mouth. ‘You’re kinda mean when you’re hurting.’

‘This? It’s nothing. Couple scratches, maybe a bruise. I barely feel anything.’ Shepard couldn’t turn his hand over, but he twitched his fingers up, bumping his knuckles against Kaidan’s palm. ‘And I _said_ it was up there.’

Kaidan’s face shifted, his lower lip brushing the curved shell of Shepard’s ear. He was looking at something in the distance, but it wasn’t Shepard’s face.

‘Alliance wants to give you a commendation,’ he said, tone shifting back to careful. Shepard wished he could tell him not to bother—that all the soft-pedaling around the issue made him way more nervous than getting it straight. The krogan approach was preferable to what a volus might do in the same situation. ‘You saved a lot of lives—our soldiers and STG debriefed their superiors about what you did. Everyone seems pretty convinced the outcome would’ve been different if you hadn’t been there. Both Admiral Hackett and the salarian councilor want to thank you in person.’

‘Funny,’ Shepard said. ‘I think I suddenly feel my condition taking a turn for the worse.’

Kaidan squeezed his hand. He didn’t even seem to know he’d done it.

‘I talked them down from a ceremony to a medal. Just a medal.’ Shepard got a brief flash of what it might be like to stand in front of a cheering audience, shaking hands with the embassy heads, maybe slipping the asari councilor a wink. The Hero of Virmire didn’t exactly roll off the tongue—it sounded more like one of those old documentaries they showed in school, after the hero in question had died doing one too many heroic things. ‘…And there was some talk of a medal _presenting_ ceremony after that, but I told them you wouldn’t be up for it.’

Shepard was surprised to find himself smiling—maybe because the topic at hand sounded more like a joke than anything else.

‘Been running interference for me while I was out cold, huh?’ He wanted to kiss Kaidan again, and not just because it was inappropriate and the elevated heart rate would make all his monitors start beeping, although if he couldn’t keep even his doctors on their toes… ‘Kaidan Alenko, you’re my hero.’

Finally Kaidan laughed, and it was the real deal—none of that beating around the bush or holding it in, like laughs hadn’t been set down in a datapad entry under standard Alliance officer procedure so they didn’t actually exist. Shepard didn’t know if it was the first time Kaidan had laughed like that. He just knew it wasn’t going to be the last.

*


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Endgame and a turian oc.

It was Garrus who brought the deck of cards, Williams who managed to finally beat Shepard three days later. They came to visit him in shifts but there was always somebody attending.

Too bad that somebody couldn’t always be Kaidan.

Shepard kept up appearances so he didn’t hurt anyone’s feelings, least of all Williams, who gave him a look meaner than the blast that’d nearly turned him to shrapnel back on Virmire. ‘Damn, Williams, go easy on a guy,’ Shepard told her, wondering where the panic button in the room was located—just in case.

‘When he goes easy on himself, maybe I will,’ Williams replied.

They’d lost Jenkins—and Shepard didn’t think about how many others, the salarians whose names he didn’t know, the guys he hadn’t trained with, and how many more of them might’ve died if he hadn’t gone crazy for a while there. It was Kaidan’s good influence all right—or bad, depending on how you looked at it—and Shepard pretended he’d thrown the card game on purpose just to get Williams off his back.

‘Then they faced off with Saren without us, too,’ Williams added, throwing her cards down with a grunt. ‘Good thing you set the precedent for blowing stuff up down there. Think you inspired Mannovai Team to go nuclear on the planet, though.’

‘Can’t say I don’t know how to show you a good time,’ Shepard replied.

‘Come now, Shepard,’ Garrus said, leaning in the doorway, all turian angles and sly turian timing. ‘Lieutenant Williams is the one who carried you out of there. From the looks of it, I almost thought you’d proposed.’

‘Who taught the turian about carrying brides over the threshold, anyway?’ Shepard asked.

They had a good laugh over that one, even Williams, still in the right mood for it from her win earlier. She dealt Garrus in and they talked about what came next, how the team was shipping out to Ilos, how Shepard wasn’t kitting up to join them.

‘Give a guy one medal and he starts to get cocky.’ Williams folded and stood, casting a long shadow even as she headed for the door. She met Shepard’s eyes once and neither of them was inclined to look away, holding their own, holding a line they’d chosen to draw. ‘Cooling your heels here in Huerta for a while—it’ll be good for you, Shepard. After a stunt like that, you _need_ to be taken down a peg or ten.’

‘She likes me,’ Shepard told Garrus.

‘As much as anyone does, I’m sure,’ Garrus replied.

When it was just the two of them in the room, Shepard shuffling the cards to give his hands something to do—better for agility than the PT they had him going through—Garrus took Williams’s chair, and Shepard submitted himself to the scrutiny he knew was coming the only way he knew how.

Kinetic shields weren’t the only deflection devices out there.

‘Ilos, huh?’ he asked, not looking up.

‘And here I always thought _you’d_ be the one to show me the galaxy,’ Garrus said. ‘If you’re thinking about coming along for the ride—’

‘I _was_ going to tell you to look after yourself, Garrus.’ Shepard flipped one of the cards over—the king of hearts—and grinned around a healing scar, holding it up for Garrus to see. Turian customs, human customs, whatever it was—they both got the joke. Always had. ‘Make sure those idiots don’t get themselves killed out there. Make sure _you_ don’t get _yourself_ killed out there. That kind of thing. But then you had to go and ruin the moment.’

‘It isn’t as though I was considering firing a few rounds into nearby fuel canisters while on the job,’ Garrus said.

‘Course not,’ Shepard replied. ‘That’d be crazy.’

‘Not to mention predictable,’ Garrus said.

‘Give ‘em hell for me, then,’ Shepard told him, and Garrus showed some teeth instead of smiling.

It was bull to have to find out what happened next the regular way, waiting for news the same as everybody else when he wasn’t the same—not anymore. But Shepard kept himself busy, mostly catching up on some much needed shut-eye, taking walks around the halls, trying not to think of it as _pacing_ or worse, being caged in.

Knowing he was the one to put himself into this situation in the first place only made things even harder to swallow. Somehow, Shepard had managed to wrangle a mission where the one guy _he’d_ made a habit of looking out for was being watched by the one person in the galaxy Shepard could trust to keep his life straightened out. But he wasn’t there to drag anyone’s asses out of the fire when they got into it, and that was where the plan fell short.

‘Shit,’ he said, just to hear it out loud.

‘Now, don’t be so negative,’ his asari doctor said. She’d been tasked with his rehabilitation, but mostly she stayed out of his way. They worked well together. ‘The rate you’re healing is perfectly acceptable for a human.’

There was no hint of a dig in what she said, no sly jab at human cellular regeneration speed no matter how hard Shepard listened for it. It wasn’t his concern anyway—but there wasn’t much to do in Huerta Memorial besides take notes on the people in it.

Everyone wanted to talk to him once they heard he’d been on Virmire, that he was working with _the_ Spectre Alenko. Shepard set up a deal early on with Doctor Michel to keep Kaidan’s biggest fans at bay, playing on past friendship—and her lingering torch for their mutual turian friend.

Something about using a person’s unrequited feelings for Garrus against them felt ironic at best, but Shepard had a host of other problems to focus on.

If something twinged, it was probably nothing more than the torso scarring.

It was Liara of all people who fed him regular updates. Williams, Garrus and Kaidan had gone into the mouth of Ilos alone, and she was hot as a batarian war beast about being left on the Normandy with the rest of the crew.

‘ _I’m_ the Prothean researcher.’ Her voice sounded tinny over the omni-tool Michel had snuck in for Shepard after the first week, and Shepard imagined Liara turning red-on-blue with how mad she was, little freckles like dots of old-fashioned ink on those high cheekbones of hers. ‘What’s the point of having me onboard if I can’t even see the Prothean ruins firsthand?’

It wasn’t the first-hand account of the mission Shepard had been hoping for. But injured mercs couldn’t be choosers, especially when the channels they used to listen in on proceedings weren’t exactly official.

That kind of thing didn’t always matter—but Shepard was somebody with a medal now. He had to watch himself.

It was why he’d flown under the radar for so long. No award ceremonies, no arrest warrants. He figured it all balanced out, only the explosion had rocked his sense of gravity—and Kaidan had done the same to him long before that.

‘Shit,’ Shepard said, but there was no asari doctor to tell him his readings were ‘perfectly acceptable.’

He eased himself back into bed, swinging his legs up with the usual grunt of frustration. It’d been a long day of doing nothing but what the doctor ordered. Enjoying the view from the glass windows lining Huerta Memorial Hospital’s many halls was only easy if you didn’t have somewhere else to be, if the twice-a-day high grade painkillers easing everything out could make you forget what the rest of the galaxy looked like.

Or the Spectre-Commander who was trawling through Prothean ruins without his Prothean expert with him.

Typical Kaidan.

‘Tell me something good,’ Shepard said, opening up the line with Liara. Saying ‘hello’ and ‘how’s the weather in that part of the galaxy?’ was for people who had time to waste, who hadn’t fought next to each other in some of the most unsavory places in multiple systems.

‘Only when there’s something good to tell,’ Liara replied.

It wasn’t comforting hearing her voice—Shepard didn’t need to be comforted—but it was familiar, a way to pass the time each day and to measure that time passing. 

‘They sure are taking their time down there,’ Shepard said, settling back against the pillows. If he wasn’t careful, he was going to get used to being treated like he was worth something. ‘Maybe if they brought Dr. Liara T’Soni with them, they’d be outta there already.’

Shepard heard a crackle of static on the other end.

‘That’d better be you laughing,’ he said.

It didn’t take a Prothean expert to read Liara’s tone, even over the shaky transmission. ‘Something’s wrong.’

The last thing Shepard wanted to hear. He could’ve worked with it if the emergency sirens in Huerta hadn’t started ringing at the exact same second, the punchline to another joke they weren’t laughing at.

‘We’ve lost communications with the ground team,’ Liara said. ‘But it sounds like you have troubles of your own.’

‘No time to waste chatting, then.’ Shepard was already swinging himself out of bed again— _no rest for the wicked_ was starting to feel more like _no rest for John Shepard_ —and reaching for his pistol before he realized it wasn’t there. ‘Have to catch up with you some other time. Don’t let me down, Liara.’

‘Wouldn’t dream of it, Shepard,’ Liara replied, and closed communications.

The hallway wasn’t the chaos Shepard was expecting—but it was clear this was more than just a routine drill. Lights were strobing like they did in Purgatory, bright red, while the alarm blared over a calm, pre-recorded voice on the speaker system telling everyone to get to the evac zones.

Shepard knew the way down to the shuttle bay. He even knew a few people he might hop on board with to get out and lay low for a while, which he would’ve done any other day of the week. Except something had gone wrong back at Ilos, the Citadel was in trouble, and there were terminal and critical inpatient wards to clear.

‘Shit,’ Shepard said, just one more time.

It wasn’t going out in a blaze of glory. Maybe that would’ve been better for him. Maybe Williams should’ve left him on Virmire and he wouldn’t have to deal with the choices he was making now.

But he was long past that and he knew it. No maybes anymore.

Shepard ducked into a supply closet, grabbing what he needed—a morphine shot straight to the knee. If only the Citadel had been attacked in the morning, he would’ve been fresh and ready to go, but after a day’s physical therapy, he needed something extra to keep him on his feet. He could practically hear Kaidan telling him he was crazy, a smile touching the corners of his voice, and that was what kept Shepard moving, not instincts or morals or even basic human decency.

He met his asari doctor when he swung back out into the hall. ‘Which way to terminal patients?’ he asked, and she pointed. ‘Now get outta here,’ he told her. ‘I’ll catch up with you later.’

‘Try not to pull your stitches unless you really have to,’ she replied.

‘Sure thing, doc,’ Shepard said.

He never had the chance to learn her name—not that it mattered in the grand scheme of things. It’d just be one more line to add to a memorial wall if they didn’t make it out of this in one piece.

The terminal patients were in the wing next to his, which was how Shepard gauged his own progress. At least he hadn’t been shuffled in there, and he’d never been one of the guys with tubes sticking out of them or more grafts than skin. There were two salarian burn victims and a turian patient who’d been hit with some kind of poison that targeted dextro-races; Garrus had mentioned that one, saying he needed near-constant blood transfusions just to flush the toxins out of his system.

Shepard didn’t know what his odds would be like outside the hospital, but he knew what they were if they all stayed there.

‘Let’s go,’ he said, one hand braced on the nearest wall. What he wouldn’t have given for a rifle or a uniform, something to lend weight to the authority in his voice. There were field medics already moving to triage the worst cases, but they weren’t soldiers. Shepard could tell the alarms had thrown them almost as much as they’d scared the patients. ‘I assume this hospital has emergency evac points?’

‘Well, of course,’ said the nearest medic, a salarian whose bearing reminded Shepard of the STG soldiers. ‘But they haven’t given the order yet. …Aren’t you a patient here?’

‘Private security,’ Shepard said. Another statement that would’ve gone down sweeter with his old M-5 Phalanx backing it up, but wishing wasn’t gonna fill his hands any faster than plain action. ‘I’m holding the line ’til C-Sec gets here.’

The salarian opened his mouth to argue when there was a _boom_ outside, followed by a screech of metal on metal. Huerta Memorial was filled with big open windows, so it was easy to see the plume of black smoke rising from a distant spot on the Presidium, the flickering muzzle-flare of guns going off in the distance.

‘Emergency protocols green-lit,’ the salarian medic said, speaking into the sudden glow of his omni-tool. ‘I repeat, we are code alpha, authorization six-two-four. You want a gun to handle, Private-Sec, or are you just here to stand around and look handsome?’

Tempting, Shepard thought. But there was no one who’d appreciate his sense of humor right now, and the turian had started coughing up bright spatters of blue blood.

‘I’ll take the gun _and_ the turian,’ Shepard said. His usual choice, actually. He got the turian’s arm around his shoulder and levered him up off his cot; he wasn’t thinking about Garrus or anyone else he knew—out there on Ilos, _something going wrong_ while Shepard wasn’t there to handle it.

He trusted Liara and Garrus and even Wrex with his life. Williams, too; _especially_ her. It was trusting them with each other’s lives and with Kaidan’s life where he got tripped up—and grateful for the morphine, killing the pain and most of the panic.

He was too old for that kind of behavior anyway.

‘I’ll send you the location for the emergency weapons cache,’ the salarian medic said. ‘And the code to open it.’

‘Think you can make it that far?’ Shepard asked the turian.

The turian coughed again, hand over his mouth, to hide what they both knew was there. ‘Do I have a choice?’ he replied.

Neither of them did, not anymore. Besides, that was practically turian for two thumbs up. Shepard squared his jaw against the answer and they started off together down the hall, following the salarian’s directions on the way to the evac point, both of them using each other to prop themselves up. It was a balancing act that worked, long enough for Shepard to get a rifle out—and a second, when the turian didn’t cough so much as clear his throat expectantly.

Then, Shepard opened one of his channels to find out what the hell they were up against, omni-tool flickering. But he was met with nothing but static and chaos; signals were jammed and that kind of tactic had geth written all over it. __

‘You sure you don’t want to get into the evac zone?’ Shepard glanced over his shoulder to the turian beside him, who caught an extra ammo pack when Shepard tossed it his way. ‘It’ll be nice and cozy in there.’

‘You already know the answer to that,’ the turian said. ‘I’m a soldier. I’ve always been a soldier.’

Shepard felt it—the words echoing like gunfire in the distance, only they ended up right in the center of his chest. ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Me too. The name’s Shepard, by the way. I figure we can find a narrow pass—one of the main doors down on the first level, maybe, keep to cover, hold off hostiles, buy this place some time—at least until reinforcements arrive.’

‘ _If_ reinforcements arrive,’ the turian said. ‘…Arcturus.’

‘Nice to meet you too, Arcturus,’ Shepard replied.

A hearty dose of turian fatality was never inappropriate. In fact, it was something Shepard had picked up from Garrus for once, not the other way around. It was just what he needed to stay positive, the right contrast to keep his head in the game.

Behind them, inpatients were still heading for safety and Shepard waved them by. It was a good thing Kaidan wasn’t around because the flashing lights, the blaring sirens, all the smoke and commotion—it’d spell a headache for sure, one of the bad ones. Shepard was close to getting one himself, except the painkillers were keeping it at bay while adrenaline did the rest of the hard work for him.

He signaled for Arcturus to take point, watching him drop down behind a bench and a potted plant. He wasn’t coughing anymore—or if he was, he was stifling it. If this was the way he wanted to go out, then Shepard didn’t blame him, positioning himself on the other side of the main doorway and using somebody’s soothing hospital garden landscaping for cover. 

All that was left was waiting it out.

If they were lucky, Huerta wouldn’t be hit too hard—they’d keep feeling the ground shaking beneath their feet but from somewhere else across the Presidium, where the majority of the combat was going down. Friends, allies, enemies, old mercs cutting and running while others stayed to fight… That was the Citadel, Shepard thought. It didn’t look like it up here, but the smell of burning things had charred the air, and he didn’t have to close his eyes to picture what was going on around them: Alliance deployment trying to control the situation and maybe a few COs wondering, just like Shepard, why the hell they signed on to any of this in the first place.

Even if their reasons were a little nobler than his, Shepard knew they weren’t better ones.

They were all fighting for something bigger than themselves, for personal ideals or maybe a crew like Shepard had. Somewhere  out there, Kaidan’s merry band of aliens and Alliance soldiers were chasing down the galaxy’s biggest threat. Shepard couldn’t be there to watch Garrus’s flank or stop Kaidan from taking vanguard position even when he didn’t have the juice to keep up a decent warp—he just had to trust they’d do it for themselves, or that Williams would do it for both of them.

The sharp crack of a rifle snapped Shepard back to the present—but it wasn’t Williams providing suppressing fire. It was Arcturus.

‘Geth!’ he called, over his shoulder instead of into an omni-tool. They were missing the necessary hardware for communication, which meant sticking close if they wanted to stay in touch at all.

Shepard barely had a chance to absorb it, but that was probably for the best. It was a waste of time to think about how he’d shaken off the geth once only to have to face them down again. If Liara was there, she’d probably say something about fate or destiny—how Shepard was doomed to repeat the same patterns until he found the faults and corrected them, or something like that.

But Liara wasn’t there and Shepard wasn’t a philosopher. All this meant to him was that there was a surplus of geth troops and someone hadn’t heard the memo that Shepard was an expert at taking them down.

Arcturus was coughing again, barely audible between rounds of fire. Shepard’s knee held steady because he couldn’t feel the damage he was doing crouched behind cover, timing his fire so it wouldn’t overlap with the C-Sec shuttles that had come in from above.

In the distance, ships were taking off everywhere. The chance of him riding away on one of them was dwindling fast, but Shepard didn’t feel the usual rise of panic at the thought of being trapped. Sniper fire took out a geth prime and Arcturus finished off a heavy trooper right before it breached their lines.

Hard to feel selfish when a terminally-ill turian was outshooting him.

More than that, Shepard had wound up where all the action was happening. Again. Sure, it was by accident, but he wasn’t about to turn down a chance to help the only way he could—which was _not_ rotting away in a hospital bed and getting PT every morning from an asari with a datapad and no sense of humor.

So long as there weren’t any fuel canisters nearby, they’d be just fine.

‘How’re you doing on ammo over there?’ Shepard asked.

‘Look after your own gun—how about that,’ Arcturus suggested.

He was right. Turians usually were, and even when they weren’t, there were advantages to humoring them. Shepard had picked up some bad habits working in team conditions. He popped something between the eyes to prove to both of them he wasn’t the weakest link, listening to the sound it made when it fell, the roar of engines soaring overhead. He saw a smaller escape shuttle get shot down, disappearing under a billow of smoke with a crash that blew out one of the windows, and got his arm up just in time to avoid the shower of glass that followed.

It wasn’t the only explosion they heard. Over in the direction of the Citadel Tower, something big was going down. Maybe the tower itself. Shepard could hear it, metal grinding as it sheared, even with blood filling one ear from a lucky shot that’d clipped the shell. 

‘Are you sure _you_ don’t want to get in the evac zone?’ Arcturus asked.

If Garrus had been the one to say it, Shepard would’ve known it was a joke.

‘Too busy looking after my gun,’ Shepard replied.

It was the banter they needed to ignore how hard one of them was sweating, how hard the other one was bleeding. Shepard didn’t know how long they’d been at it—long enough that most of the shuttles were in atmosphere, at least—as he reloaded, dropping an empty clip between his feet. Little shards of glass were stuck in his sleeve and along his thigh and he didn’t bother with picking them out, though he did wish he had another morphine needle right about now. It was all or nothing, do or die, same as it ever was. Even Arcturus got that. Especially Arcturus.

A line of sweat dropped from Shepard’s chin onto his omni-tool. A second later, he heard clipped orders come in over the feed, a soldier’s trained commands barking sharp through the static. ‘—Anderson,’ the voice began, cutting in and out. ‘—team mobilized—find Spectre Alenko’s squad—I repeat, report to Citadel Tower for—Anderson out—’

‘Nice piece you’ve got there,’ Arcturus said into the fuzzy silence they were left with. Hostiles were coming in fewer now; there was still a narrow window of time during which Shepard could hope to get through to the Citadel Tower, report for duty like the transmission said. Maybe he wasn’t C-Sec or Alliance, and maybe he was only tapping into the channel because of his connections, but he had a vested interest in Spectre Alenko’s squad all the same. Somehow, they were back on the Citadel, and that changed everything. Again. ‘You go,’ Arcturus told him. ‘I’ll hold down the fort here.’

‘There’s nothing to hold down,’ Shepard said. ‘Get your ass back to the zone. We’ve done all we can in this place.’

‘ _You’ve_ done all you can in this place.’ Arcturus paused to cough again but cut off; turians always were stubborn, even or especially when drawing their last breaths. ‘I can still take a few more out.’

‘Sure. Have it your way.’ Shepard ducked out of cover to make sure the area was clear, then made the mistake of looking back. Arcturus had his back braced against a bench, rifle resting between his knees, blue blood dripping down his arm.

‘Don’t get sentimental on me, Shepard,’ he said. ‘You don’t look like the type. Well, neither am I.’

‘It was an honor working with you,’ Shepard told him. Not his words; they sounded too much like someone else’s.

Arcturus coughed—or maybe he was chuckling. ‘I’ll only say the same for you if you get out of here.’

Shepard backed up his claim the only way he could, heading out of Huerta and into unknown territory. Kaidan was at the tower, and Shepard wasn’t going to let anything else stand between them.

*

He met up with Anderson—Captain Anderson; Shepard had only seen the guy in passing and he probably had no idea who Shepard was, even if a few weeks ago he’d been the one suggesting they pin a medal on him—after an eerie trip through a silent Presidium, stepping over too many corpses along the way. Geth, humans, aliens—it was, as they said, a real nasty business.

But there was one thing that’d come out of it—they’d taken the war right where it hurt most. This wasn’t news of tragedy from a distant system and at least the council couldn’t ignore what was happening, not now that had crashed right into their doorstep.

‘Took a lot of human lives to keep the Destiny Ascension in the air after she was slow taking off,’ Captain Anderson said. Shepard got the idea he wasn’t looking to start a conversation as much as he was working out his own thoughts, but it didn’t matter. He still wasn’t looking to buddy up with the Alliance any time soon, no matter how often he found himself working with them. ‘The council can’t possibly ignore the sacrifice the Alliance made for them today—not after Spectre Alenko tried to warn them it was coming.’ He kicked a fallen rafter beam to clear a path, Shepard following behind him to finish the job. ‘You stick around, son, and you might just be present for humanity’s turning point right here on the Citadel.’

‘Something tells me no one’s gonna be in a ceremonial mood for a while,’ Shepard replied.

It was no skin off his nose and he didn’t mind if Anderson knew it either.

‘You’d be surprised how quickly they’ll be willing to sweep this one out of the airlock,’ Anderson said. There were crews of C-Sec officers up ahead, running to various points in the Presidium to check for survivors. Shepard kept an eye on them, but he didn’t watch outright—too much margin for distraction.

That, and Anderson moved quick for an old guy. Shepard had to hustle just to keep up.

‘So—we honor your sacrifice by throwing a party?’ Shepard said.

He knew a little something about covering up big events before there was time to let their implications sink in. Hell, he and Garrus practically kept Purgatory running on a bar tab that was based largely around failed missions and that lower-gut burn pushing them to do better next time. But Shepard could still see the salarian field medics, the asari doctor who’d been so proud of his recovery—and Arcturus coughing into one hand while he fired with the other.

It was a little early to start celebrating. Shepard was suddenly hedging his bets and he had to find Kaidan before he could admit it was all his influence.

‘Something like that,’ Anderson said.

They climbed the stairs together, to where blossoms from the broken cherry trees littered the ground like a sprinkling of early snow. There was shattered glass covering the once-pristine grounds, and sparks from broken circuits flying every which way, thwarting the Citadel rescue crews’ best attempts to locate and rescue survivors.

Beyond all that, Shepard could see a turian sitting on the ground.

He wasn’t alone.

The pink armor on the soldier next to him matched the cherry blossoms; Shepard had seen enough blue blood that day to accept there wasn’t enough of it to stain the tableau. ‘We’ve got two live ones,’ Shepard said, starting forward. Whatever pain he’d been nursing in his burning muscles was gone now and he hadn’t even needed a shot of adrenaline to the chest to put on that extra burst of speed.

Just seeing Williams and Garrus was enough fuel for the old thrusters.

Shepard was at their side first, before any of the rescue crews managed to catch up. And sure, maybe it was a point of personal pride—that he needed to be, that he had more right to be, or simply that he was.

‘Don’t get too excited,’ he said, dropping down next to Garrus, with a quick once-over to make sure he wasn’t hiding any internal injuries. Williams’s armor was roughed up a little more than usual but hell, Shepard had seen her handle ten times worse and come out of it just fine, even carrying a passed-out merc over one shoulder. ‘I’m not an angel _or_ a vision. Disappointing, I know, but at least I brought backup.’

‘Shit, Shepard,’ Williams said. ‘This your idea of going easy on yourself?’

‘Couldn’t let an alpha team show me up—not again,’ Shepard replied. ‘I promise, I didn’t even blow anything up this time.’

It was close to being familiar, getting his arm under Garrus and hauling him to his feet—Williams was already pushing herself off the ground and Shepard knew she wouldn’t accept any of his help, not even if it came with a pretty please on top. You could do that for a guy when you’d known him long enough, when your legs were his legs and both sets were busted up. It wasn’t the first time that day Shepard had helped a turian stand, either, but Garrus wasn’t coughing anything sticky and blue into his hands, and Shepard nearly breathed a sigh of relief.

Except there was somebody important missing from the reunion picture.

‘Alenko,’ Shepard said.

It’d almost come out as _Kaidan_.

That was a mistake he couldn’t make in front of Anderson, not even in the heat of the moment. Especially not now that he was the commendation type, but it was more for Kaidan’s sake than for Shepard’s. The way your men treated you—that was the way to read a commander, and Anderson would be the first to know it.

Garrus didn’t look away. Garrus never looked away. But Shepard thought he could see his lips purse into something like defeat, not the confirmation Shepard was gunning for.

After all, Shepard had charged him with looking after the guy. Garrus hadn’t made any promises because they’d been implied.

‘No sign of the Commander,’ Williams confirmed. Her voice was as hard as the jaw plate of her helmet, with the same kind of dent in it, too.

She didn’t have to sound so sure about it.

Shepard had already lost one pragmatist that day. Being realistic didn’t mean being outright pessimistic; there was still a chance of finding someone alive in all that rubble.

But a chance in one direction meant a chance in the other. Shepard scanned the destruction, fallen support beams and scattered glass and sparking fuses, guys calling to each other when they hit a live wire. He asked himself why the hell he hadn’t boarded one of the escape shuttles first thing or why he’d let someone tell him when he could or couldn’t go on a mission, that he had to stay behind recuperating. There was no way of determining what would’ve made a difference and asking those questions, blaming yourself for what had or hadn’t happened, was the first step down a long road there was no turning back from.

There was a reason Shepard always traveled light. _Goodbye_ wasn’t in his vocabulary. Garrus was still standing and he could always bank on that, Williams’s broad shoulders, but Kaidan…

Shepard blinked. All the chances in the world, and sometimes your hand came up with the worst cards you’d ever seen. A green lieutenant with no poker face could still hand your ass to you because that was how luck worked. Shepard could still remember the heat of Kaidan’s breath, the scrape of his stubble, his lips on Shepard’s jaw—his hand rolling medigel above Shepard’s knee, but mostly the warmth in his palm.

He stumbled, but Garrus was there—the guy Shepard had been helping out of the fire was suddenly the same one he was leaning on. Impossible to tell where those turian reserves of strength came from. Shepard admired them about as much as he envied them, the cold, scaly press of Garrus’ nose against his cheek.

That, more than anything else, told Shepard how bad it was, how stark reality _could_ be. Garrus wasn’t one for physical affection—and turians didn’t do the whole headbutt thing. It was a reminder, a warning touch to keep Shepard up and on his feet. One of these days he was gonna find a way to thank the big lug for keeping him grounded in more ways than one, but just now Shepard wasn’t feeling all that grateful.

It was like he’d said to Anderson—no one was in a ceremonial mood.

Williams had already started off away from them, shoulders squared for the debriefing she’d have to give, the people she had to answer to. Moments like these were the only ones where Shepard truly envied the Alliance types. In a system that structured, you always knew what came next. There was a backbone of rules to fall back on when your world got shredded like it’d been hit dead center with a frag grenade.

Over Shepard’s left shoulder, behind one of the fallen cherry trees, the rubble shifted.

It’d probably be doing that for awhile, the whole damn structure unstable until they got some real mechanics in to sort it out. Shepard didn’t let himself wonder what they’d find, just like he wouldn’t let himself ask Garrus what it’d been like right up until the end.

‘Shepard,’ Garrus said.

‘Not now,’ Shepard said, his voice blasted and burnt like the ground beneath their boots.

He felt the shift in Garrus’s muscles, the effort it took just to make Shepard turn with them. Someone was stumbling across the destroyed courtyard toward them, black blood spattered down the front of his Alliance blues.

‘Holy shit,’ Shepard said.

For once, it wasn’t just to piss someone else off.

 _I know what this looks like_ , Shepard thought as Kaidan’s eyes locked on him from across the distance, hitting him dead-center instead of from ricochet. _Your body’s not even cold and already I’m finding comfort in Garrus’s arms, but—_

It never made it off the ground. It was a good line; they could even have a laugh about it later. But the rescue team was too busy cheering and Kaidan too busy picking up speed, and Garrus didn’t have to give Shepard a nudge to shake him loose, just letting go of his shoulder.

Shepard made it a few steps forward before he realized how shaky they were—how there was no damn way he was gonna lean on Kaidan when the guy looked about as beat-up as Shepard felt. Shepard swayed but stayed upright, just long enough to give Kaidan a two-fingered salute.

Just so Anderson would know what he was all about.

‘Think Liara’s worried about you, Spectre-Commander,’ Shepard said. ‘Why the hell didn’t you take your Prothean expert with you to explore those Prothean ruins, anyway? Wouldn’t want to be on _her_ bad side. Not today.’

‘Good to see you again too, Shepard,’ Kaidan said, and the sound of his voice when he said Shepard’s name was enough to make Shepard’s shoulders straighten all the way.

‘Aye aye,’ Shepard replied.

*

They didn’t get any time alone together until after the debriefing—and after Dr. Chakwas got a look at Shepard’s leg. He could tell by her face it wasn’t pretty down there, but like most things, it’d held up when it needed to. Others had lost more than just a few weeks of PT progress, and Shepard leaned back waiting for the medigel to numb the area, thinking about the guy who _had_ come back instead of all the guys who wouldn’t get the same chance.

It was that kind of thinking that got him in trouble with people in the first place, always saying he didn’t have a head for the business he was in. It wasn’t that he was too trusting of _individuals_ but maybe too respectful of their _ideals_ —or maybe there was no room for counting your lucky stars in deep space with half an ammo clip to your name.

There was more to Shepard’s name than that now. There was the way Kaidan Alenko said it, hot and rough when they were together, pressed up against Shepard’s mouth and caught on Shepard’s tongue—or dry in the back of Kaidan’s throat, like he needed to clear something free, like it was stuck deep in his chest and nothing was ever going to be the same.

That was a lot riding on one name. Shepard put his arm over his face, closing his eyes against the crook of his elbow, still stinking of gunfire and blood but mostly hard-earned sweat.

If you were still sweating, you were still breathing. Shepard thought about Kaidan and he passed out, easy and clean.

His internal clock—the personal rhythm he’d built up over the years—was all off when he snapped out of it, waking with a grunt that startled him free from sleep. Worse than that, his first thought wasn’t for himself but for Kaidan again, the same guy he’d gone black thinking about, and that was how he knew he was done for. There’d be no contingency plan, no evac shuttle, to haul him out of this mess.

At least his knee didn’t feel anything.

‘How’s the knee?’ Kaidan asked.

He was a quiet guy, always sneaking up on you, always showing a good hand when you least expected it. Shepard remembered the way he’d said it during their first mission together, _flush_ , proud of himself but not for no reason, when the answering heat in Shepard’s skin had followed his command even then.

‘I don’t know,’ Shepard said. ‘Think I need you to check down there and tell me. Dr. Chakwas doesn’t have your naturally gentle touch, Kaidan.’

‘Yeah?’ Kaidan didn’t bother with pulling up a chair, sitting on the edge of Shepard’s cot instead. He angled himself just right—so Shepard could see his tired shoulders, the shadows under his eyes. Damn, but the Alliance had no idea how to let a guy rest after he’d saved their skins. ‘Maybe I should’ve gone in for a different profession way back when.’

‘You might’ve had more luck asking me to be your nurse than your lieutenant,’ Shepard replied.

‘ _That’d_ be something, huh?’ For all Shepard’s sweet-talk about his gentle touch, he couldn’t feel a thing when Kaidan finally _did_ touch him, fingers trailing up his calf to the bad knee. Chakwas had him in some loose-fitting hospital thing; not his style, but he hadn’t exactly been awake to protest the change. ‘Doctor Alenko and his rogue nurse Shepard? I doubt any hospital in the galaxy would hire us. Reputations like ours have a way of spreading fast.’

‘That’s the news for you.’ Shepard braced himself on one arm, folded behind his head. He didn’t want to watch his own medical exam, not exactly, but it seemed like a good idea to keep an eye on Kaidan in case he got inspired to go running off again. ‘Always focusing on the negative.’

Kaidan chuckled, slipping his hand under Shepard’s knee to push his leg up and examine it from the underside. He couldn’t be sure, because of the whole numbness factor, but there was a chance the exam had gone from medical to indulgent, and that Kaidan was getting something he needed just from touching Shepard like that.

No complaints from the patient.

‘I heard you… _took charge_ of the situation in Huerta,’ Kaidan said. The tone he was using meant whoever’d passed along the message hadn’t been as complimentary.

‘Last I checked, it’s not a crime to impersonate private security,’ Shepard replied. He’d been careful about that, as little as the details meant. Whatever he did, there was no reason for it to reflect back on the Normandy and her crew. ‘For all they know, that _is_ my job. Shepard, Incorporated.’

‘You can’t look out for the entire galaxy,’ Kaidan said.

When he lifted his eyes to Shepard’s face, Shepard was ready for him, catching that gaze and holding on. There’d been too much of this by Shepard’s standards—a med-bay and too many injuries between them. At least he’d gotten out of Huerta in one piece. He’d miss the asari doctor, but he didn’t even know if she’d survived the siege.

‘Look who’s talking,’ Shepard said.

‘Alliance insignia… It’s more than a commendation medal, Shepard.’ Kaidan’s hand stilled, high up enough on Shepard’s thigh that he could feel it. Slight, light pressure, the heat of Kaidan’s fingertips—and when the painkillers wore off, they were going back to Shepard’s old room in Purgatory first thing, staying there together for at _least_ a few days. ‘But…you know that already. Don’t you?’

‘I don’t have to read the definitions to figure ‘em out for myself.’ It was probably the right time for Shepard to cover Kaidan’s hand with his own and pretending like he wasn’t about to—Shepard never flew that way. It was as simple as lifting his arm, shoulders still tired, muscles still sore, to pat Kaidan’s knuckles with his thumb, rubbing the space between fore- and index-finger with a callused fingertip. ‘But _you_ knew _that_ already, too.’

There they were. Two grown men holding hands. Shepard chuckled and Kaidan bowed his head, just enough that Shepard could kiss him right below the hairline.

‘What I’d do to you if I could feel my legs,’ Shepard said, lips pressed to Kaidan’s skin.

‘I’m trying not to think about it until you can,’ Kaidan replied.

Shepard’s teeth scraped the furrow in Kaidan’s forehead but his mouth was what smoothed it out. That was better—more than just hand-holding, and something Shepard needed to remind them both who they were. There hadn’t been any real chance to think about it—that if things had shaken down another way he might not have had the opportunity to prove anything to anybody, least of all himself—and when it hit him, it was like the back-end of a rifle to the unarmored gut, knocking the wind out of his lungs. He caught his breath, but not before it caught in his throat.

‘Gotta work on your poker face, Shepard,’ Kaidan said.

Shepard chuckled again, but it didn’t have the energy and it came with too much heart. That was the problem with playing it from the sleeve instead of close to the vest—right at the pulse on the inside of his wrist, where Kaidan turned his hand around and touched him. Gentle. Still; always.

Shepard hadn’t had something to rely on like that to begin with. It wasn’t a matter of years; it was settled in lifetimes.

Mercs didn’t keep the goods for themselves. They were just a stop along the way, passing things on while they passed through.

‘You made an impression on Anderson, though. That’s not easy.’ Kaidan traced the run of the vein all the way to the inside of Shepard’s elbow and it was all Shepard could do not to flinch. He liked the way it felt, the way it tickled, the way it held back—just like Kaidan’s voice—and the way it burned through his belly, the same fuel they’d stood together watching on a ship-for-hire with a pilot named Joker sitting in the cockpit.

‘Anderson, huh?’ Shepard asked. ‘He doesn’t seem so bad—for old Alliance brass, anyway.’

‘So impressed it seemed like he wanted to give you a commission. I told him it wouldn’t work, though,’ Kaidan said, ‘that I’d tried already but you were…pretty set in your ways. Still, Captain Anderson… He’s more stubborn than I am. And with the Council all shook up, everything going down on the Citadel the way it did, people looking for heroes first and soldiers second…’

‘Anything could happen,’ Shepard admitted. ‘You know me. I like to keep you on your toes.’

‘Wouldn’t mind it if you kept me on my back,’ Kaidan replied.

Shepard hissed at the thought and Kaidan chuckled—only it tore at the end and they kissed each other, hard but not fast, bumping teeth and noses. Shepard cursed when it was over, trying to lean up into it, doing nothing more than pulling Kaidan down with him.

‘I’ll settle for keeping you on your back for now,’ Kaidan added, lips inches from Shepard’s. ‘No more crazy stunts, all right? Not even if the Citadel’s burning down around you.’

‘I can’t make any promises,’ Shepard said.

Kaidan’s mouth twisted. Shepard kissed the corner the way someone had done for him one time, drawing it out soft and slow. Gentle, even.

‘Would it help if I said Garrus could join the team too?’ Kaidan asked. ‘Not…officially, but at least you wouldn’t be leaving anything behind.’

He wasn’t right about that, not exactly. There were a whole lot of things Shepard was gonna have to kiss goodbye if he agreed to the medal and to Anderson after that, meeting an Alliance captain and shaking his hand. It did things to a guy—it did things to a _merc_ , especially.

Hard to run side by side with Eclipse and the Blue Suns once you’d had your picture plastered all over ANN, calling you some kind of hero. His fate had been all but sealed after Virmire. This stunt on the Citadel was just the final coat of paint on the job.

But Shepard had always known that. He was smart. He’d never thought he was smart enough to get out of the game before it took him out permanently, but sometimes it wasn’t the other guy who surprised you.

‘I’ll work with _you_ ,’ Shepard said finally. No way of knowing whether that was the answer Kaidan wanted, but it was the one he got. No promises, just putting all their cards on the table. ‘On the Normandy. _If_ I sign up, it’s gonna be to work with a council Spectre, not an Alliance crew.’

‘Pretty convenient you’re on first-name basis with the only human Spectre then, huh?’ Kaidan said.

‘Guess I was born lucky or something,’ Shepard replied.

Drugged to the gills, in a hospital bed for the second time in as many weeks, he still managed to sell the sincerity of the moment.

Then again, looking at Kaidan, the fine lines at the corners of his eyes and all the plans they had for messing up Shepard’s healing body all over again, it was so damn easy to believe it was true.

**END**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks SO MUCH for reading and commenting, guys! It made me excited to update every other day. :D Originally the plan was to take the fic through ME2 (and switch up who gets spaced, maybe...) but the sequel to Tenth Street Reds kind of took over. But maybe a sequel shall be in the future, too...! Thanks again, hope you enjoyed it!


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